


A Complete Education

by bomberqueen17



Series: Continuing Education [1]
Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, F/M, Household Politics, Misunderstandings, Past Abuse, Sexual Education, The Emperor's Dav, the fantasy of a world where everybody has good intentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-13 07:14:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 57,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18464068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: Preparing for the Emperor's wedding, everyone has some things they need to learn about.





	1. Studying The Steps

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason I made the stylistic choice never to use Maia's POV, but just about everybody else's is in here. Shoutouts to the #thegoblinemperor chat on Discord for sources on Telimezh's first name, and the biggest shoutout to Kiwisson for keeping that Goblin Emperor torch burning until I literally had no choice but to read it. Thanks also to everyone who has said nice things as I've posted excerpts, and to the many who have shouted with me about how the h*ck the nohecharei schedules are supposed to work. And especial thanks to the various people who've looked up spellings, pronunciations, and terms for me once I returned my copy of the book to the library.

 

“It’s only my hands on thine, Maia,” Csethiro teased her fiancée gently, and was rewarded with one of his delicate blushes. It had taken her a little while to be able to decipher them; under his slate-colored skin, the blood didn’t change his color so much as it deepened it, made him luminously dark instead of dull. It was subtle, but rewarding. She’d made a bit of a study of reading all his expressions, and had from the first first been charmed, but was beginning to harbor some suspicions as to why he was so delicate about certain approaches. She knew he’d been raised in isolation and darkness, and it wasn’t a leap from assuming he hadn’t had a great deal of delight in his life, before his sudden and disorienting ascent, to recognizing that he’d probably been subjected to a fair amount of pain.

But it made it that much more precious to be able to draw him out. And getting him to blush but not withdraw was an achievement she savored. He did not know how to be teased, but she was determined to teach him. 

“Truly, I won’t burn thee,” she murmured, pulling herself closer against him than the dance strictly required. 

“Of course not,” he said, but he was even more flustered, and completely forgot the steps. She coaxed him on a little more, and then gave up.

“Let us sit for a moment,” she said, using the plural. He retreated gratefully, but she was merciless, and sat in the chair directly next to him. 

It was desire, she knew it, and it was thrilling-- normally such a thing would be distasteful, but she was to marry him, and they’d be expected to consummate the relationship in the normal fashion. Such was perfectly possible without much if any feeling on either side, but it was a rare treat among her social set to be able to think of looking forward to such a thing on its own merits. And he was, but not in an acquisitive sort of way-- he was so shy, so hesitant to ever admit to wanting something. His eyes shyly darting over her was an exquisite little gift. 

“Thou’r’t nearly ready to dance at the wedding,” she said. 

He laughed, and put his hand over his eyes briefly. “I don’t know about that,” he said. 

She lowered her voice. No one was present except the normal gaggle of hangers-on; the maza nochecharo was tapping her fingers on her thigh in echo of the rhythm of the music they’d danced to, but guardsman nohecharis was openly staring out the window, completely absent. Mer Aisava was sitting at the table across the room, absorbed in looking between two documents and correcting one of them. “I am ready for the wedding to happen already,” she went on.

“Thou already know’st how to dance,” Maia said, a little glumly, and then caught her expression, her raised eyebrows, and blushed deeply. 

“I have been studying,” she said quietly. “The…  _ steps _ I don’t know.”

Maia had more or less stopped breathing, and swallowed hard. He was quick on the uptake; she’d noticed that early on, but it still delighted her, as most things about him did.“I knew not... that was... something one could  _ study _ ,” he said carefully.

“There are books,” she said hastily, realizing that he might think she was telling him she’d been-- “Manuals and things, Maia, it’s not like I’m--  _ practicing _ .” 

He considered that a moment, then slid a look at her, collecting himself somewhat. “I confess I have been somewhat concerned,” he said. “About. What that is, ah. Likely to entail.”

“You,” she said, and paused. The maza had stopped drumming her fingers, but didn’t seem to be paying attention, but the guardsman had stopped looking out the window and was regarding his folded hands in his lap. He wasn’t looking at them but it was much more likely he was listening.

“I have absolutely no education or experience in this matter,” Maia said, a little grimly, saving her the trouble of asking. “Only a bare summary of the facts, and little enough of that.”

“I can send thee my notes,” she said, and patted his knee innocently, but gave him a smoldering look under her brows. He swallowed hard again, and in a moment she jumped up brightly and said, “Shall we resume the lesson?”

  
  


The courier came in as Csevet was going over the notes from the last meeting of the Corazhas. He was a hire courier, not wearing the livery of any house, but the packet he was holding was too thick for the pneumatic. Csevet took it, somewhat puzzled, and thanked the courier, who bowed politely and left. 

It was addressed to Edrehasivar VII, as one would expect, but after a moment Csevet recognized that it was sealed with a Ceredada seal, and it said, in a lovely strong Barzhad hand, “Pursuant to our earlier conversation,” and then under that, underlined, “FOR HIS SERENITY’S EYES ONLY,” which was presumptive, but. There was not likely to be anyone writing from the Ceredada except for Csethiro herself, so Csevet set the packet aside unopened, despite his burning curiosity.

Edrehasivar himself came in a moment later, trailing back from his weekly dinner with Arbelan Drazharan. He looked thoughtful, and perhaps a little tired, but not unduly distressed. Csevet noted with approval that the young Emperor was starting to settle down a little, not always so jumpy and nervous, and it was possible for him to grow weary without curling in on himself quite so much as when he first came here. He was still fragile, but there was hope of him growing sturdy. 

He sat next to Csevet, and started to pull over the sheet of notes Csevet had just set aside. “There’s a packet for you, Serenity,” Csevet said, indicating it with a gesture of his chin.

“A packet of what?” Edrehasivar said, dubious, but pulled it over toward himself and looked at it. He noted the seal, read the note, frowned, and then blushed, suddenly and thoroughly. Csevet fought with himself over allowing a smile, and lost. 

“We assume it’s Dach’osmin Ceredin,” Csevet said, “so we didn’t spy, but will we wish we had?”

“No,” Edrehasivar said, pulling the packet closer and hunching his shoulders protectively. 

Csevet waited, but no explanation was forthcoming. Now he was curious, but he wouldn’t have had time to discreetly unseal it, read it, and replace the seal unless he’d stolen it away for a good quarter-hour of concentrated work, or more. He couldn’t do half a job on that sort of thing anymore; he’d been too honest for too long, and Edrehasivar was too sharp. He could have opened it blatantly, as it was not his wont to pass on correspondence unexamined, but he’d played that hand and pretending ignorance wouldn’t work henceforth.

At any rate, it wasn’t likely to be necessary; Csethiro seemed to not only be a valuable and unassailable ally, but also a kind person. Csevet squashed down his curiosity, when Edrehasivar made no move to open the packet. He could let the man have at least that much privacy, and trust that if it needed his intervention, he’d be summoned in due time. “Well,” he said. “If my advice is not necessary on its contents, I can leave you in privacy to read it.”

Edrehasivar looked up almost guiltily; he’d been lost in thought, perhaps. “Oh,” he said, and with an effort set the packet aside, “no, I’ll read it later.” He met Csevet’s eyes and bit his lip, and was clearly struggling for an explanation. It was clearly something he was excited and embarrassed about, something personal, something-- well, between a young man and his fiancée, who was a young woman of great force of personality and a keen love of mischief. Of course it was something entertaining, or fun, and something Maia Drazhar would never have encountered in his whole life. And something, most importantly, that Csevet Aisava had no claim to.

“You don’t have to tell us what it is,” Csevet said fondly. “You’re allowed to have private correspondence, Serenity.”

Edrehasivar opened his mouth, and Csevet shook his head. “Serenity,” he said, “do not explain yourself, please. Take your interesting packet and go and we will have everything in order for your review on the morrow.”

The emperor considered that a moment, looking very young and a little guilty, like a schoolboy contemplating skiving class. “You wouldn’t... mind?”

It was absurd, and sweet, and Csevet blinked at him for a moment. “Serenity,” he said, and then paused. Chiding the young man for being who he was wouldn’t be productive. Edrehasivar knew fine well he was the emperor and could command whatever he wanted, and he didn’t want to at the moment, and that was fine, in this private moment. Csevet leaned in and said quietly, warmly, “This once? I wouldn’t.”

Edrehasivar gave Csevet a look of pure, shimmering adoration, possibly the sweetest and purest thing Csevet had ever experienced in his life. He gathered the packet against his chest, folding his arms over it, and bit his lip, then said resolutely, “We will be prepared first thing in the morning to attend to all of this business. We thank you, tremendously, Mer Aisava.”

It was an absurd jump in formality, and Csevet was helpless not to beam moonily at him. It would have been embarrassing, except the boy was so clearly delighted. He put his hand on Csevet’s shoulder in a warm, goblin-like gesture, and then fled the room.

“I can’t imagine what’s in that packet,” Csevet said distractedly to himself as he went back to his work.

  
  
  


Kiru Athmaza conferred with Lieutenant Bunu Telimezh in a single glance, and read that he was in a mournful mood, so she jerked her chin downward to volunteer herself to accompany Himself into the bedchamber, so that poor Telimezh could occupy himself all night staring out various windows at the moon and not feel constrained to a single chair. Perhaps she’d recommend he take up meditation, later; it might do him good. He was a sweet kid and didn’t deserve the anxiety he’d been suffering from. And it might be good for Edrehasivar to meditate with someone besides Cala or herself, whose meditation necessarily had a different aspect than his; Telimezh could learn to accompany him, and it would do them both good.

Satisfied with her own conclusions, she went in as Edrehasivar’s edocharei set to work on his clothes and hair. He had a packet of papers he’d set down on the little lap desk that tucked into his nightstand. He didn’t usually bring reading or writing materials to bed, because normally he never went to bed until he was so tired as to be unable to work any longer, but he’d used the desk for reading a time or two. 

She idly patrolled the room, double-checking every window as she always did, looking for magical residues and physical signs of problems alike. The corner of the ceiling had a crack in the plaster that had been there her first day, and never grew, but she checked it every time. When she’d completed her patrol, which she never did the same way twice, she went to her accustomed seat, which gave her a view of most of the entrances, especially the door. By then, Edrehasivar had been bathed, braided, and dressed in his nightshirt. He climbed into his bed, clearly preoccupied and absorbed by the packet of papers, and lit the bedside lamp. She went and turned out the room lights, and returned to her seat.

“Goodnight, Kiru,” he said, a little absently, and she echoed it back to him fondly. He looked up, frowned absently, and twitched the bed curtains the rest of the way shut, which he normally didn’t bother with.

Hm. He must be very interested in, or very concerned about, those papers.

Kiru settled herself into the meditative watchful state she always used for this type of duty, contemplating the nature of reality, and breathing in the rhythm of the life in the palace complex, and so on. She lost herself a bit, but never lost touch with her awareness of the Emperor, who was reading intently. She could hear his breathing and feel his presence, and after a little while she refocused to pay more attention to him.

He was agitated, or-- upset, somehow. Whatever he was reading wasn’t a good bedtime story. His breathing was coming a little fast, a little shallow, and she could tell from his shadow that he was leaning forward a little, tense. 

She let this persist for a time, as he turned pages, frequently pausing to put his hand to his face as if emotional. He wasn’t weeping, but his breathing was too fast, he wasn’t just reading a quaint story. 

Perhaps it was an exciting story. It might be an adventure novel, copied out for him. Perhaps a manuscript not yet published, given for his perusal in hopes of some advantage. 

He sucked in his breath noticeably; not a gasp, but a hitch in his breathing nonetheless. Something shocking. Kiru listened carefully: was he upset? 

He let his breath out in a rush, and breathed in again, turning a page with brusque haste, and then he actually let out a little noise, a tiny half-voiced exclamation, as if he was truly upset or shocked or surprised. 

She listened, and he was silent for a moment, and then breathed in deeply, and out deeply, and murmured, “I had no  _ idea _ .” And then he turned another page, and hummed intently. Something shocking and fascinating, then. 

Should she check in on him? She contemplated it a moment. Surely simple reading material was not going to harm him in his own bed. She could leave him be.

He fidgeted, shifting his weight, and turned another page. He was still agitated. It must be an adventure novel, or something similarly exciting. She sat and listened to him, letting her mind stray to contemplate her duties for tomorrow-- she had to sleep, but she also had to have a conversation with a friend, and oh yes, the discussion with Telimezh about meditation, yes. 

Some time passed without her remarking it particularly, and then Edrehasivar gasped again, an unmistakable sharp intake of breath. Her attention had wandered enough that it startled her, and before she could recollect the situation she responded, sharply, “Serenity?”

There was a fraught moment, and then he said, “Ahh-- it’s fine, I-- I was reading something.”

“Of course,” she murmured, settling back down.

In a moment, he pushed the curtains aside to poke his face out and look at her. “Kiru?” he said.

She rose smoothly, and came over so he could speak to her. “Yes, Serenity?”

He looked up at her, biting his lip. “There’s,” he said, hesitating.

She knelt beside the bed so that he would not have to crane his neck to look up at her. “Serenity,” she said. “Ask your question.”

He looked down at her, now, and she could see an anguish of uncertainty behind his features. “It’s about… nohecharei etiquette,” he said. 

“Yes?”

“What are you,” he used the plural, “to do on my  _ wedding night _ ?”

There had been some brief discussion among them of that already. It was rare for the seconds and firsts to be able to confer, but Kiru had brought it up to Cala, and he had sprung it on Beshelar as they awaited the shift change, with Telimezh inside the bedroom still. Beshelar had colored magnificently, mortified at the mere mention of it, and the two mazei had enjoyed his discomfiture, but they had reached no particular conclusion. It was a well-known facet of a nohecharei’s duty, but as none of them had served before, it was still as-yet something none of them had directly dealt with. Kiru felt she or Cala would probably be best-equipped to handle it, for now at least. Beshelar clearly would need work. She had been reluctant to broach the topic with Telimezh; he was very young, and hard to read sometimes, and she just didn’t know what he’d make of it.

“One of us must remain in the room,” she said gently. 

“The bedcurtains are no privacy at all,” Edrehasivar said gloomily. 

She took her courage in her hands, and stood, then sat on the edge of the bed, so that she could look at him more on his level. “Serenity,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “Is there any further way we can prove ourselves? None of us would-- behave inappropriately, or think less of you in any way, or--”

“I won’t know what I’m  _ doing _ ,” he blurted. “It’s bad enough  _ Csethiro _ has to be there for it! To think of someone else  _ observing _ \--”

Of course he was a virgin. Of course he was. He’d been so alone, all his life. And now he couldn’t have even a moment’s privacy.

It suddenly struck Kiru that surely he didn’t even masturbate, or she or one of the others would know of it, and would have told the others. At least as a quiet, amused warning. 

He looked so miserable. She reached over and took his hand between hers. She was never so familiar, but he clearly needed it. “My dear,” she said quietly, unable to help herself; it was a motherly little endearment. He let her hold his hand, and looked plaintively up at her, his knees drawn up under the blankets and his body curled into itself, the lapdesk set off to one side with the papers shuffled neatly facedown.

Finally she said, “You know I have been celibate. But I have… seen a great deal of life. I know how it works. I can answer questions for you, if you like. And if you wish, I will be here, and you know I will never judge you. And I won’t tell the others, no matter what they ask. It is not only your privacy, Serenity, but Dach’osmin Ceredin’s as well, and I would not violate that.”

He sighed, slowly, and contemplated that. “It is true,” he said at last.

“I can advise you somewhat,” she said. “But it’s true that any of the others would likely have more concrete knowledge for you. However, they may not… know how to answer your questions. But if you like, I can find someone who could advise you discreetly.”

Edrehasivar smiled lopsidedly at her, and then reached his free hand over to retrieve the packet of papers. “I have an advisor,” he said, and flipped the packet over, turning to a middle page that bore a diagram of-- 

It was an unmistakable diagram of the female reproductive system, showing the external and internal parts. Kiru leaned in, with some fascination, and looked at it. “Why, so you do,” she said. It struck her as astonishing to consider Csevet providing him with any such thing. “Mer Aisava assembled this for you?”

Edrehasivar laughed, embarrassed. “No,” he said, “not at all.” He flipped a few more pages-- diagrams of possible positions for coitus, with notations explaining the different purposes of each. Kiru read the labels as much as she could, before he turned the pages-- they were practical explanations, not superstitious ones. “If the female partner has a shallow angle of the vaginal canal,” one read. “If the male partner’s member is of an unsuitably large size,” read another. And one said-- Kiru put her hand out to keep him from turning the page. “For the use of an artificial phallus, to be affixed to a harness.”

“Oh my,” Kiru said. “What-- how thorough. What expert did you find to compile something so-- scientific?”

“Csethiro,” Edrehasivar said. “She is-- she’s so  _ clever _ ,” he said. “I admitted I was nervous and she said she had been studying, and she’d send me notes.”

“She is an admirable individual,” Kiru said. This was daring. It was all in a single hand, even the diagrams: Csethiro had clearly copied from several different volumes to compile it, with an expert curator’s eye. Kiru’s respect for both her intelligence and bravery went up.

“I am,” Edrehasivar said, “fortunate beyond telling.” He let her turn several more pages; there was a diagram explaining the menstrual cycle, outlining the optimal days for conception. “I didn’t… know that was how it worked,” he admitted in a moment. 

“It is not widely taught,” Kiru said absently, turning the page. Now there was a list of suggested sexual acts to achieve satisfaction without any risk of conception. Some of them were things Kiru had never heard of. “This is so thorough.”

“Our fiancée is not given to half-measures,” Edrehasivar said. 

Kiru had to smile at him for that, he was so proud of Csethiro in that moment. “She is an extraordinary young woman,” she said. “We’re glad you could make such a match.”

She turned the page again and there were more diagrams of possible sexual positions. Edrehasivar looked at them, and then blushed, and freed his hand from hers to gently gather the pages up away from her. “I don’t know where I’m going to hide this,” he said. “Anyone else who saw it would-- well, they would assume, and with good reason--”

“It is normal, though,” Kiru said, reprovingly. “Any who judged you for it, Serenity-- why, you are a youth of nineteen, it would be more concerning if you were  _ not _ curious.” She hadn’t been, particularly, but that was beyond the scope of this discussion. And then she knew what she had to do.

She gathered herself, and stood. “My dear,” she said again, and then made her tone cooler, more formal. “Has any of this-- made you--” She steeled herself. “Interested?”

Edrehasivar blushed so suddenly and so furiously that she knew her instincts in this were correct. He had the blankets bunched around himself, as if he were hiding from her. “I,” he said, fumbling. 

“It is normal, my dear,” she said firmly. “As well, it is normal to-- administer relief to oneself.” She was not embarrassed, this was perfectly reasonable, but he was so mortified it was hard not to feel the same in empathy. “Does this treatise not mention such?”

“It does,” he said, unable to look at her. Were a taper laid beside his cheek, it would kindle itself from the heat of his blushing. 

“Then you should do such,” she said. “As practice. As we understand what it is you are doing, then we will know to not to listen, and to disregard any sounds we may hear, unless you call out deliberately to summon us.”

“I don’t think I  _ can _ ,” he said, low and horrified.

“Nonsense, my dear,” she said. “Listen, I can’t leave the room, but I’ll get a book and light a lamp of my own and sit and read, so I won’t be able to see you and I won’t be paying attention.”

“I can’t,” he said. “Kiru-- I can’t.”

She stood back, and pulled the curtains closed. “Serenity,” she said softly, “you must. Get the treatise out and reread it, and think on your duty to your wife, and you’ll find you can forget me.”

She went back to her seat, and lit the little lamp there, digging out one of the books from the far section of the small shelf by the window, so that if he peered out, he would see she was keeping her word. 

He did peer out, after a moment. “Kiru,” he said.

“Hush,” she said, not glancing up. “We shall only hear you if you call for us, henceforth.”

There was a moment, and then he let the curtain fall closed. “Goodnight,” he said softly. 

Kiru turned a page loudly. 

There was no sound for a few moments, and she thought perhaps he would reject her suggestion. It wasn’t like she could really give him orders, after all. But after a little while she could hear him turning the pages again, and his breathing-- ah, yes. His breathing grew shallow and harsh. It had been arousal, not agitation. 

She kept her word and did not listen particularly as fabric rustled-- and after every motion, he paused for a long time, as if in chagrin, and on one occasion she loudly turned a page again and heard him let his breath out in a soft laugh. 

In a little while, she heard very quiet sounds of repetitive motion, and smiled to herself. His breathing grew ragged, and she ignored it. At length he drew in a sudden deep, ragged breath, and then let it out in a quiet little series of choking exhalations. 

Kiru Athmaza smiled to herself, closed her book quietly, and blew out her lamp. A few moments later, her sweet young emperor rustled some pages, rolled over, and blew out the lamp by his bed. In moments, his breath had evened out into the soft heavy rush of childlike sleep.


	2. Correspondence

 

“ _What_ ,” Deret said.

“It was a compendium,” Cala said, imperturbable. “Of resources on sexual intercourse.”

Csevet had turned bright red. “Oh my,” he said, ears lowering in mingled astonishment and amusement.

“That had been very thoroughly researched and compiled for him,” Cala went on, “by none other than--”

“Csethiro Ceredin,” Csevet put in. “We saw that, her handwriting on the exterior of the packet, and the Ceredada seal.”

“The whole thing was in her handwriting, Kiru says,” Cala said. “Including the diagrams.”

“That is _fantastic_ ,” Csevet said. “Well, she _is_ of a scholarly bent. What an ingenious solution.”

“This,” Deret said, feeling as though he were somehow hearing an entirely different conversation than everyone else, “is not something we should be discussing.”

“Oh,” Cala said, looking alarmed, “this doesn’t go any further than us! It must remain in the household. We trusted you would _know_ that, Beshelar.”

Deret sputtered. “It’s-- it’s not seemly!”

“It is within our purview,” Cala said mildly, using the plural, “thou mustn’t be such a hen about it, Deret.”

“It is _not_ within our purview to discuss salacious details,” Deret hissed, but Csevet cut him off.

“We are not discussing salacious details,” he said. “These are crucial and sensitive matters, and if there were no one seeing to his education in this matter we would have had to do it ourself, and so we are extremely grateful, thank you very much, not to be needed in this matter.”

“And who,” Cala went on mercilessly, “is going to have to be in the room for the entirety of their marital relations, Deret?”

Deret had known, of course, for his entire training, that a nohecharis never left his post, ever, no matter what. And he had already spent his share of time leaning against the wall of the latrine pretending not to hear anything one normally heard in a latrine, while busily listening for anything he genuinely _shouldn’t_ be hearing, such as sounds of distress or an attack or somesuch. And he had, of course, known they would have to oversee the bedchamber even when there was more than one person in it, and Kiru had _already_ made at least one unbecomingly crude joke about it.

And yet.

Somehow, Deret had not really considered that he was going to spend much of his life a spectator to the sexual exploits of the Emperor Edrehasivar VII. He’d considered it in the abstract, certainly, but he had not actually thought about the young man himself, and his slender little frame and his delicate blushes, and-- _that_.

He closed his mouth.

“Are we going to forever draw that short straw?” Cala asked resignedly. “Oh, well. But we should tell you the conclusion of it, Deret, which is that Kiru, having the patience as she does of a saint, informed him that he may as well practice, and assigned him to see to himself before he went to sleep.”

“See to h-- _ah_ ,” Csevet said, and blushed all the way to the tips of his ears.

Deret had a terrible suspicion he’d be upset when he understood, but he didn’t yet, and he did not want to let on, but Cala was looking at him now. In a moment Cala raised one eyebrow.

“She found him in bed with a pamphlet full of dirty pictures, man,” Cala said, “and then told him he’d better take care of whatever _situation_ had _arisen_. And then sat and read a book in the corner while he-- did.”

“Did,” Deret said, frowning, because Cala surely couldn’t mean-- he looked up in horror. “Cala!”

“It is necessary,” Cala said wearily.

“In front of Aisava,” Deret hissed, reproving.

“It is his business as well, Deret,” Cala said. “If the Emperor is having an affair, if the Emperor has some kind of health condition, if there is aught amiss-- Mer Aisava must know of it, and we can’t tell him in front of the Emperor.”

“Give the boy at least the _pretense_ of privacy,” Deret said.

“We are,” Csevet said. “We are having this conversation in private.” He shook his head slightly. “Thinks’t thou I would tell _anyone_ of this?”

“No one,” Deret said. “No one!”

Csevet set his jaw. “Deret,” he said, composure visibly fraying, “if thou thinks’t I would hesitate to _die_ for him any longer than _thou_ woulds’t--”

“Easy,” Cala said, putting his hands up, though whether to hold Csevet back or Deret himself, Deret wasn’t sure. He hadn’t realized he was pushing himself up in his seat. It was an effort to sit back down. Of all the people in this room there was only one who had actually thrown himself onto a weapon for the Emperor and it was ridiculous to dismiss that.

“It feels disrespectful, to us,” Deret said stiffly. “To-- _discuss_ it, thus.”

“That is because thour’t a hopeless prude,” Cala said, “a woman of seventy in the body of a twenty-three-year-old man, and I forsee that I shall have to fasten myself to the wedding-chamber wall while thou lurks’t in the antechamber for decades hence, but I will do my duty--”

“As will we,” Deret growled. “We just won’t _tell tales_ about it afterward!”

“If you hear of this matter from anyone, henceforth, and have reason to believe we were the one to carry the tale of it, you may strike us dead instantly,” Csevet said, with excessive formality, and stood.

“Now you’ve done it,” Cala muttered to Deret, who watched the secretary leave with no trace of repentance.

“This is _base gossip_ ,” Deret said.

“Then next time we won’t tell thee,” Cala said peevishly, “and canst figure it out _thyself_.”

  


Csethiro made herself wait, at the next ball, and not dash up to the throne to interrogate her fiancée about whether he had studied the packet she sent him, or whether he’d been disgusted by it, or how that gambit had worked out for her. It was anguish, but there was no call for over-forwardness, it wouldn’t help her case.

She sought out her aunt Arbelan Drazharan instead, not allowing herself to look at the slender figure ensconced on the throne, glittering gently and looking like wistfulness concealed under impassivity, as usual.

“My dear,” Arbelan said, at length, “how go your dancing lessons?”

Csethiro bit her lip. “We think they are going well,” she said. “He seems pleased.”

“He has indicated that he is,” Arbelan said. Oh, yes, she dined with him weekly.

“Does he seem excited for the wedding, to you, or does he seem mostly nervous?” Csethiro asked.

Arbelan considered that. “He seems,” she said thoughtfully, then paused. “He has not very much to say about it, but with him often that means that it is too precious to him to speak of. You have noted this tendency, perhaps?”

“Which tendency?” Csethiro asked, perplexed.

“When he wants something very much,” Arbelan said, “or feels something very strongly, he hides it. I think he instinctively fears having things taken from him, if he is too eager for them. So if one presses him on some matter, asking his opinion, if it is something that he truly, _personally_ likes a great deal he will be dismissive and reticent.”

“Truly?” Csethiro tried to think of how she would not have noticed this. But, truth, she seldom asked him his opinion on things in any great detail. She grimaced, realizing. “We talk over him, a great deal,” she said. “We never press him on any matter.”

“Your relationship needs must be fairly shallow, at this juncture,” Arbelan said. “It is not fitting for you to press him on any issues. We daresay your approach has been ideal.” She smiled, a small smile but a warm one. “For when we ask him about the matter of the wedding, he looks down at his plate and murmurs shy, pleased little platitudes, and very occasionally looks up and makes embarrassed little smiles about it. We think he must be very pleased, and very nervous withal.”

Csethiro couldn’t help but be flattered, and she looked away rather than blush and giggle and titter like a vapid little girl. It was not as if Arbelan would not see through this, but the formal effort to resist it had to count for something. “I am growing quite fond of him,” she admitted. “All of my study of history and politics cautions me that I shouldn’t, and yet.”

Arbelan took her arm, and squeezed her hand. “My dear,” she said, low and quiet. “Of course thou must keep thine eyes open, and be prepared for any eventuality, but there’s no harm in letting thyself be a happy young woman for a little while.” Her expression went wistful. “My situation would not have been much improved by being fond of him, but had he been someone _worth_ being fond of, such as this one, all things might today be very different.”

Csethiro let herself look at Maia, then, and he had just been speaking with Vedero, who was sweeping efficiently down from the dias with a bemused look. Maia watched her go, then turned and spoke to someone behind him. His nohecharis made some gesture, a reply, and whatever he said made Maia laugh briefly, a bright sparkling expression on his normally-reserved face. It was impossible, Csethiro thought, to imagine him laughing _cruelly_.

“He _is_ worth being fond of,” she said softly, and Arbelan squeezed her hand again.

 

Deret wasn’t trying to listen, but someone in the crowd had made a concerning movement a moment ago, had looked like they were about to rush the dias with the throne, and so even though it had been a false alarm and the fellow had left, Deret was positioned defensively and close when Csethiro Ceredin came up, and it would be disruptive of him to excuse himself to stand farther away, so he stayed where he was. His heart was still hammering from the false alarm, and he needed a moment to calm down, so he did his best to be utterly motionless and expressionless as he stared forbiddingly out at the room where everyone was unconcernedly mingling.

Edrehasivar greeted his fiancée warmly, a look of genuine pleasure on his face as she settled herself into the chair Deret had made sure was nearby, as was his habit now at these parties. They made brief, desultory conversation, but right away, the emperor reached out and took Dach’osmin Ceredin’s hand with his, and said, low but fervent, “I wanted to thank thee for the notes you sent over.”

Ceredin blushed; she wasn’t a pretty girl, but she was charming if you liked a strong nose, and she had a directness to her that could either be endearing or off-putting. Deret had found that he was beginning to find it endearing despite himself, because of the way Edrehasivar responded to it, like a flower being coaxed to bloom by sunshine.

“I thought thou might’st find it too forward,” she said, “but-- there seemed no more delicate way to go about it that would still be effective.” And she was brusque and earnest, but there was a faint note of pleading to it; she cared what he thought, wanted him to be happy.

Gods help him, Deret wanted them both to be happy, and he was going to have to listen to them flirt, and he was absolutely going to have to listen to them fuck, and he might die.

“No,” Edrehasivar said, agreeing, “no, it’s-- perfect. I-- so many questions, answered, and some I knew not I should ask-- Csethiro, thour’t a, a marvel.”

Deret had been practicing to be as a statue for his entire adolescence and adulthood, how to view all with impassivity, how to look completely neutral about everything no matter what befell. He thought himself skilled at it, but in the span of time since he had taken up the genuine work of nohecharis, he had realized that perhaps he was more of an open book than he had believed himself to be after all this practice. And in this moment, he shifted his gaze slightly to take in less of Ceredin’s pleased reaction, and instead saw Arbelan Zhasanai watching from below. She met his gaze and grinned suddenly, a strangely satisfied look on her face, and Deret in dismay wondered what emotion his features could possibly have been betraying.

 

Later, Cala said to him, “I thought thy face might catch fire, what in the gods’ names were they discussing?”

“Nothing of import,” Deret insisted. “How would I catch fire? I was merely watching the room!”

“Thou didst look _upset_ ,” Cala said, and lightly shoved his shoulder as he walked away.

“I did not!” Deret said. Nemer, the brave little edocharis, was passing by, and paused. “We did not look upset,” Deret clarified to him, for some reason.

“We are sure you did not,” Nemer said reassuringly, and utterly without sincerity, and made to move on.

Deret held out his hand to stop him. “Forsooth,” he said, “have we a poor control over our expressions?”

Nemer’s ears twitched, but he controlled his face. “Lieutenant Beshelar,” he said solemnly, “you are the portrait of stoicism itself.”

“Thank you,” Deret said, knowing Nemer was kidding but not knowing how to respond, and Nemer made a tiny shade of a formal bow and went on his way.

 

Another letter arrived, via pneumatic this time, with the Ceredada seal, addressed to Edrehasivar in Csethiro’s bold barzhad, and Csevet held it thoughtfully between his fingers, feeling that it was several pages thick, and thought hard about a cold window, a hot knife, an old trick for prying a seal intact and reaffixing it with no sign. It was more than just a letter, to be sure, though it was still thin enough to go through the pneumatic. More research, perhaps.

Kiru had told him Edrehasivar was concerned about where he could keep the other packet where it would not be rifled through by curious eyes, and Csevet had devoted thought to it. For he wanted, of course, to rifle through it with curious eyes, but it would be a terrible betrayal of trust, since he’d already been told the rough outlines of what was in it. And surely, he did not need to know more.

There had been anatomical diagrams. Csevet lost himself in reverie, not for the first time, thinking of what those anatomical diagrams could possibly have looked like. Thinking, then, about Maia’s expression as he looked at them. Had he been shocked, at first? Clearly, he’d been intrigued, from what Kiru reported. Csevet thought about Maia’s skin going flushed under the soft gray, the way his eyes brightened when he was agitated. He’d paid a lot of attention, these long few months, to what his emperor looked like in different emotions, but he’d never seen him aroused. Interested, perhaps, intrigued-- the way his eyes sometimes unwillingly followed a beautiful girl, or sometimes a beautiful youth, yes, Csevet had noticed that particularly, and how he always pulled his control back and looked away-- but what would it look like if he didn’t? How would desire take him? His eyes would go wide, and he would fight it at first, biting his lip--

Csevet startled violently as Telimezh pulled out the chair across from him and sat down. Telimezh startled in his turn, and leapt back to his feet. His expression changed to chagrin and guilt as he looked around, noticed the absence of any possible other culprit, and realized what must have happened. He sat down again, and said, “I didn’t mean to startle thee.”

“It was my fault,” Csevet said, putting the envelope down, “I am sorry, I was paying no heed to anything.” It was the shift change, he should have realized; Telimezh was waiting for Beshelar to come out. That meant the Emperor would be arriving shortly as well. _Get control of thyself_ , Csevet thought irritably.

“Works’t too hard,” Telimezh said, concerned. “I think thou sleep’st less than I do.”

Csevet shook his head fondly. Telimezh was a kind soul. “Nay, in truth, I was daydreaming,” he said. “Wouldst like a preview of today’s agenda?”

Telimezh smiled softly. “Thour’t too kind,” he said. “I need no forewarning. It’s the Corazhas today, is’t not?”

“It is,” Csevet said, and pulled over the agenda he’d filled in as he went through the morning’s arrived messages.

 

 

“Properly,” the courier Azhalet was saying to Beshelar, “shouldn’t the nohecharei stagger their shifts? So that one of the two changed out every four hours? And then the pairs would alternate who they were partnered with, so that they could fill one another in on important things, security threats and such-- what, do you make reports in writing? I mean, how do you--”

Cala, standing in the hallway, contemplated how best to rescue his partner, who was bearing Azhalet’s teasing with ill grace and ever-higher color. “That’s not how it _works_ ,” Beshelar said, teeth gritted. “We don’t-- we talk it over at intervals--”

Azhalet was a courier, a friend of Csevet’s, and hung around often enough to presume that his friendliness with the secretary extended to the rest of the household. He wasn’t entirely wrong; he was generally charming and amusing, but he did not mesh well with Beshelar, and seemed either not to know it or possibly to find it entertaining.

Cala thought of remonstrating with him, decided it would be unrewarding, and settled instead on swinging into the room, saying crisply, “Beshelar,” and leaving. He was instantly rewarded with Beshelar surging to his feet and following him out.

“What’s toward?” Beshelar said, ardently correct in all things, and Cala just nodded solemnly at him as they strode together down the hall.

Finally, he judged they were out of earshot, and slowed his pace. “Nothing,” he said, “I just wanted to spoil Azhalet’s fun in teasing thee.”

Beshelar stared at him in disbelief for a moment, then made a disgusted face, but there was, Cala saw it, a tiny flicker of resigned amusement in his eyes. “Thou’rt a cad,” he said, and he was doing a creditable job of not breaking, but there was a laugh hiding under his voice.

“Thou’rt cute when thou’rt indignant,” Cala said, smirking.

Beshelar snorted helplessly, but got himself quickly under control, and followed Cala along the servant’s hallway toward the Emperor’s apartments. Their shift would change in a few minutes, and Cala hadn’t been awake long.

Suddenly Beshelar said, “Cala, do I give away too much in my expression?”

Cala glanced over at his partner, who looked-- uncharacteristically unhappy, now he thought of it. “Give away,” he said, frowning.

“Reveal,” Beshelar tried.

Cala contemplated that. “Define _too much_.”

Beshelar gave him an exasperated glower. “Thou’rt not helping,” he said.

Cala laughed, ducked a shove, and fended Beshelar off finally with a hand. “I’m not known for helpfulness,” he said, but relented. “Deret,” he began, and paused, then sighed. “Thou’rt not exactly a closed book, no, but generally what can be read in thy face is what one ought to be able to read there. It’s not thy purpose in life to be a man of subterfuge.”

Beshelar made a strange sort of wryly grim face, that suited him not, at that. “Tisn’t that I want some gift of lying,” he said. “But I fear someday I may cause a problem, by not…” He waved a hand, shook his head. “I thought I was better at it but people keep _saying_ things.”

“Thou’lt not cause a problem,” Cala said stoutly, reassuring; there was a time to tease, and this wasn’t it. “Thy expressions are perfectly appropriate. Thou’rt a nohecharis, not a statue.”

“Mm,” Beshelar said, unconvinced.

Cala was trying to think of a better way to put it when they arrived in the antechamber off the dining room, where the remains of dinner had been tidied away. Several servants were bustling around, and Cala stole a few choice morsels of abandoned dinner on his way through.

“Thou _urchin_ ,” Beshelar said, dripping fairly convincing disdain, but Cala knew him well enough by now to recognize that it was light-hearted. Beshelar disapproved of things by sheer habit, at times, and there wasn’t much force behind it in those moments.

Csevet was sitting in the chamber beyond; Cala thought it safe to assume that the Emperor was being dressed for that night’s entertainments. As ever, Csevet was at a desk working on something, but he looked up and noticed them.

There was no need for the nohecharei’s shifts to overlap for briefing, Cala thought, because there was other household staff to pass on warnings. He pulled over a chair and sat down next to Csevet. “Anything to report?”

For some reason, Csevet looked dubiously up at Beshelar, who was standing next to Cala absently looking around the room-- probably seeing if either of the seconds were about, since one would likely be guarding the door of the room where Himself was dressing, with the other inside it. Csevet’s gaze returned to Cala, and he said, “Another letter arrived from Dach’osmin Ceredin.”

“Another letter,” Cala said, and then, “ _Oh_.”

“Yes,” Csevet said. “We believe it’s an appendix to the earlier compendium.”

Cala contemplated that. “I see,” he said. And Csevet’s hesitance about Deret made more sense; Beshelar’s attention snapped back to them and he frowned, the kind of frown that etched a line between his brows, on his otherwise yet-unlined young face, and pulled his ears back somewhat.

Csevet shrugged. “We would hate to debase us all with idle gossip,” he said, with elaborate irony, “but we thought you might like to know that His Serenity is aware of the correspondence and has betrayed some anxiety and interest over its contents, and has mentioned that he would like to return home early enough to give it some proper contemplation before he goes to sleep.”

Perfectly correct, Beshelar said frostily, “We appreciate the insight and will do our best to see it done.”

“If you can spare a moment to confer with Kiru Athmaza when she comes out,” Csevet said, “we imagine she must have some advice for you on Himself’s preferred etiquette concerning such matters.”

“We have discussed it briefly,” Cala said, “but I would not mind a moment to reassure myself with her conference.”

Beshelar nodded crisply. “We will go and see if she can be spared a moment early to confer with you,” he said, and went away.

Cala watched him go, and turned back to Csevet, who was looking unimpressed. “He means well,” Cala said.

“Almost I wish he would be caught unawares in Himself’s chambers as the un-warned witness to an intimate moment,” Csevet said, with uncharacteristic asperity, “were it not that I desire above all things for Himself never to be discomfited.”

Cala ducked his chin to his chest to avoid spluttering out a laugh, managing to keep his expression barely under control. “It could possibly be arranged,” he said, clearing his throat. “For, as you know, Deret Beshelar is a very dutiful and principled noharechis who would _never_ discomfit Himself.”

 

It would not be that night; Himself very earnestly and shyly looked back and forth between the two of them, and ventured, tentatively, “Cala, would you--” and of course Cala would, of course, and Beshelar snapped into a crisp salute and went to guard the door, and Cala resigned himself, dredged up all his patience-- it wasn’t that difficult, really, and thought of Kiru’s advice.

“Serenity,” he said softly. “Kiru told me that perhaps I should bring a book and be prepared to… pay less close attention to you, as you prepare for your wedding.”

Edrehasivar looked startled, then slightly embarrassed, then grateful. “Well,” he said. “I, that is.”

“You should know,” Cala said, “that I spend a lot of the night in a kind of meditation anyway. It’s not so formal as the type we do with you, but--”

“I understand,” Edrehasivar said shyly. “Thank you.”

  
  


Csethiro came in from the day’s errands to find her stepmother sitting in the apartment’s main room, reading a book with a cup of tea next to her. She looked up. “A courier came for you, dear,” she said, “with a message, but he wouldn’t leave it with us.”

Alarmed, Csethiro set down her shoulder bag. She’d been borrowing more books, of course. “Did he say who he was from?”

“Your fiancée,” her stepmother said darkly. “What could he possibly send that could not be entrusted--” She was so outraged she couldn’t finish the sentence.

“It could be that he wished to take an answer straight back,” Csethiro ventured. “If it was a verbal message, especially.”

“No, it was a letter,” her stepmother said, disgruntled. It was crystal clear that she had intended to read it herself, and was torn between claiming that this was her right, or even duty, or insisting that she would never have done such a thing and how dare the messenger suspect her. It was a sign of her unimpressive intellect, Csethiro thought, that she had not made up her mind enough herself to argue either.

“It is his prerogative as the Emperor to be particular about these things,” Csethiro said, “and certainly not our place to pass judgement on how he goes about it.” She used the first-formal, not the plural, but her stepmother bristled with dudgeon anyway.

“We are aware that he can do anything he likes,” she raged, “but that means not we must be pleased with it, if he respects us not!” She used the plural, that time.

Csethiro shook her head. “We have no complaints of his conduct,” she said. “Nor of his respect.”

She reflected, as her stepmother flew into a rage, that she should have seen this coming and should have known better than to walk into it. But what choice did she have? She had nowhere else to go. There was little she could have done. She didn’t shout back, but kept her composure with difficulty. Eventually her father came in, and inserted himself into the hullabaloo, and Csethiro managed to flatten herself against the wall and avoid participating further in the discussion. Even in the middle of a full-throated argument, her stepmother couldn’t decide whether she were insulted that she wasn’t trusted not to read the letter, or that she wasn’t allowed to read the letter, and so she argued herself in circles while her father admitted that on the one hand, it was improper to correspond with a woman without her family’s oversight, but on the other hand, he was the Emperor and he was allowed to do as he liked, and on a third hand, what possible impropriety could be contained in a letter, and he had run out of hands but kept invoking more of them anyway.

In the end, Csethiro crept out to the anteroom, and stood there composing herself. She shouldn’t feel shaken by the arguments; she thought of the novel she’d been reading, where the brave young hero was beaten by his terrible, grasping, unprincipled step-parents. Such a brave hero would barely even notice this, which was solely verbal and not likely to have any physical repercussions at all. She shouldn’t be upset. And she’d be free of them soon enough, anyway.

She was an adult woman. And she would never be independent. It pressed down on her like a weight, then: the Emperor was a kind person, she was sure, but if he proved not to be, she would have no recourse.

It was likely his letter was scandalous, a response to the correspondence she’d sent to him, and so if she capitulated and let her stepmother read it, matters would not be improved, and there could even be a scandal. But even if it wasn’t-- it was not to her to say the Emperor’s wishes for privacy shouldn’t be respected, for her to say that something he had wanted only her to read should be made public regardless.

It had only belatedly occurred to her that the things she sent to him might be opened and read by his assistants and secretarial staff, but his reaction had indicated that either that was not the case, or that he didn’t care. She wasn’t sure whether that meant she should care, or not.

At any rate, she would have to either make her correspondence more discreet, or--

She suddenly remembered her book on cryptography, which she’d used to devise codes for some of the other scholarly-minded women of her acquaintance. They were good intellectual occupations on their own, and she’d explained them to her stepmother as just being word puzzles-- which, to be fair, they mostly had been.

Would Maia Drazhar be interested in learning cryptography, she wondered dismally, as her stepmother noticed she was gone and came storming out into the anteroom. “We! Were! _Speaking!_ To you!” she shrieked at Csethiro.

“Mother,” Csethiro said quietly, “I thought you were speaking to _father_.” It didn’t serve, but only inflamed the older woman’s fury. Her father came out and rejoined the argument, and Csethiro stood, stock-still and silent.

 _Maia would laugh at thee_ , she thought, _for being so upset over nothing. They’re not even really shouting at thee. If thou’rt to be an empress, thou’lt need to be able to bear up under more than this._ But her hands were shaking.

A knock at the door summoned the housekeeper, at the least, but wasn’t enough to stop the argument. Csethiro edged toward the entryway, and was rewarded with the sight of the courier. Her stepmother would be furious with her again for leaving, but she slipped into the entryway.

“Dach’osmin Ceredin,” the messenger said. He was a striking young man, with elvish bones and goblin coloring, and from his leathers, was more often the sort of courier who went on longer journeys than simply within the court. “We were instructed to give this only into your hands.”

“We thank you,” she said, managing not a very good smile. He couldn’t miss the commotion, and glanced over her shoulder.

“Shall we tell him we found you in good health?” he asked. “We were not asked to bring a reply, but if you have one to hand…”

“My honored stepmother is furious that you would not leave the message with her,” Csethiro answered him; she couldn’t bear not to say it. “We will send him a reply as soon as we may but it may take some time. If you could in the meantime tell his Serenity that we cannot at the moment guarantee the privacy of our correspondence, but that we are working on a solution which we will send shortly?”

“Of course, Dach’osmin,” the messenger said, and bowed.

She cracked the seal-- Maia’s personal seal, which was a fanciful cat-serpent thing she quite liked the look of-- and glanced at the letter contents. Nothing obvious, at least. Just words. The messenger left, and she stood in the doorway, so she could not be said to have left the room where her father and stepmother were still arguing, and read the letter.

_To Csethiro Ceredin, fondest greetings._

_I wanted to thank thee for the most excellently-researched collection of notes thou wert good enough to send me. My education was very eccentric, with numerous regrettable gaps, and this has done much to fill at least one of them. Sometimes I feel that my entire time within this court has been spent out of my depth and treading water, so any scrap of driftwood is precious. With this, thou hast given me a whole tree for my support._

_I would like to write more to thee, concerning this matter, for I know not how to speak of it, yet I have questions. It is not seemly to meet in person, and due to the nature of my position there is no privacy to speak aloud of delicate matters anyway, so writing would be best. There are a number of things in specific I should like very much to ask thee for clarification about, but I know not how to discuss them._

_Csevet Aisava, my secretary, suggested to me that thy correspondence may not be private either. He was a courier for many years, and so has a great deal of insight into the pitfalls of written communication._

_I sent a courier because I did not trust a pneumatic note not to go astray; I ardently wish to have at least one avenue of communication that does not go wide of its mark and come back to me as gossip. Nothing against thy family, of course, and I levy no charges against individual messengers either, but I have found that even a sealed note is sometimes irresistible to curiosity, when its writer is-- well, me. It all seems much worse to me than it is because I spent so much of my life of absolutely no interest to anyone living; this is perhaps the greatest adjustment I have had to make, that my every idle word becomes a subject of speculation and discussion. I do not mean to complain, but it is a great deal of strain._

_On that note I will end this because I think my secretary is reading over my shoulder._

_With sincere affection,_

_\--M._

 

Csethiro was reading the last line of the note when her stepmother saw her and stormed over to her. “Well?” her stepmother shouted.

Csethiro shook her head slightly. “It’s just a note,” she said. “It is a personal correspondence from my fiancée to me about how he wishes to discuss a digest of book excerpts I put together for him on an topic he’d not been educated in.”

Her stepmother, red-faced, was in no way pacified by this, so as she drew breath to re-engage, Csethiro simply handed her the note and walked past her into the apartment. Maia’s own words would damn her, and he could not be punished for it, so let him speak; if her stepmother repeated them to anyone she was only confirming the very premise of the communication.

She probably _would_ , because she was not very smart, and Csethiro _could_ be blamed for that, if it got back to Maia, but there was no help for that. At least, Csethiro thought, as she retrieved the pamphlet on cryptography from her desk drawer, she had reasonable faith that Maia wasn’t the sort who would be angry with her about it.


	3. Cryptography

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Azhalet is Scarlet Ribbons from the book, I absolutely could not resist making him the Kind of Gay That Can't Sit Normally In Chairs. Listen, someone in this joint has to know how beautiful they are.

 

“Oh, it was an almighty racket,” Azhalet said, sitting comfortably in the chair beside Csevet. Azhalet had never sat correctly in a chair in his life, Csevet thought fondly; at the moment, the man had both knees hooked over the arm of the chair and was leaning back, looking at the ceiling, arms crooked behind his head. “The old biddy was howling and screeching, and her husband roaring back at her, and poor Dach’osmin Ceredin was standing in the doorway like a hunted beast.”

“That sounds awful,” Csevet said. “The poor woman!”

“I thought so too,” Azhalet said. “I always thought of her as-- well, you know, she’s one of the fiery sort, run you through as soon as look at you, I daresay she’d take me in a fair fight. Magnificent creature. You think she’ll eat our sweet Emperor alive?”

“He’ll be improved by it,” Csevet said, “there never was aught to make a man out of a boy like a fine strong woman.” They both laughed at that, though Csevet’s laughter was perhaps insincere.

“Oh, but he’s so lovely,” Azhalet said. “We mustn’t joke, he’s had enough terrible things said of him. And she looked so upset, I felt bad for her. I’m glad she’ll be with him soon, for surely our Serenity would strike himself dead rather than shout at any living creature.”

“It does take a lot for him to raise his voice,” Csevet said. No, there would be no shouting in this household. His amusement ebbed, leaving only dismay. “How ever are we to break the news to Himself that his letter got his fiancée in trouble?”

Azhalet sat up, having to retrieve his legs from the chair arm to do so. “I hadn’t thought about that,” he said.

“You can’t just-- what exactly did she say, again?” Csevet picked up his pen and turned it over in his fingers, thinking.

Azhalet put his fingers to his forehead delicately, staring off into the distance to recollect it. “My honored stepmother is furious that you would not leave the message with her,” he quoted. “We will send him a reply as soon as we may… Tell his Serenity that we cannot guarantee the privacy of our correspondence at the moment, mmm… ah, then how did she say it?” Csevet waited patiently; Azhalet was a seasoned courier of more or less the same level of experience as Csevet himself, and had carried many verbal messages verbatim. “We are working on a solution which we shall send shortly,” he concluded in triumph, and leaned back again, this time putting his feet on the table.

“A solution,” Csevet said.

“I can’t begin to imagine,” Azhalet said. Csevet gave his feet on the table a reproving look, but it was hard to argue with him; the position also showed off his long, lithe legs to advantage. Azhalet saw him looking, and gave him a heated look from below his lowered brows, giving one a quirk as he ran his tongue over his teeth. It was a while since they’d amused one another on that level, as Csevet had been far too busy and distracted, and now as Csevet considered it, it was overlaid a little with guilt that he might think of another with black hair and gray skin and lithe legs. He shouldn’t, surely…

“Cryptography,” Csevet said suddenly. “Archduchess Vedero and some of her friends were much enamored of sending one another encoded messages some time ago, and Varenechibel disliked it so the fad went underground. I recollect that there had been much discussion that it was just word-puzzles really, and most of the messages were inconsequential, but it was in fashion. I’m quite sure Dach’osmin Ceredin was involved.”

Azhalet’s eyes brightened from their smolder into intellectual curiosity; he was neither stupid nor venial, though he sometimes pretended to one or the other, or both, just as he pretended to vanity sometimes with his red ribbons. He wasn’t wearing them today, which was a shame; Csevet liked them, they were a sort of boldness he wouldn’t ever reach for, himself. Even as a courier he’d been understated, conservative, and it had served him well in getting him more important commissions, including the message that had begun Edrehasivar’s reign and given him this position. And now, as he was, he could dress finer, but even more staidly, so he did.

It was fine, he liked being this way-- he was greatly enjoying the higher clothing allowance, to be sure-- but it meant he admired Azhalet’s style with more wistful envy now.

“I never learned much of code-writing or code-breaking,” Azhalet said. “But I would! Where do I start?”

Csevet shook his head, rueful and amused. “The point is that thou wouldst _not_ know it,” he said. “They write in code and decipher one another’s code, they’re not going to involve thee in the process at any point.”

Azhalet considered that. “Oh, of course,” he said. “I suppose me wanting to learn would seem sinister, in that case.” He sighed, and shrugged one shoulder. (He was more powerfully built than Edrehasivar, though still lean; they did not resemble one another in anything but coloring, really. It would probably be safe to indulge in a romp with him, and probably wouldn’t lead Csevet to betray his hopeless crush on his liege-lord.)

“Couldst learn anyway,” Csevet offered, with a quirk of mischief, and Azhalet laughed.

  


Bunu Telimezh was well aware that he hadn’t been sleeping well, and was well aware that he needed to do something about it, and was extremely, _extremely_ well aware that his duties would suffer if he did not get under control, and he was also very well aware that he was devoting too much of his attention to worrying about the wrong things, and he was in addition running out of ways to politely thank the various people that kept telling him to get himself together without just snapping at all of them that telling him things he already knew were in no way helpful to him achieving any of those objectives and he ardently wished to consign all of them to the _demons_ at this point.

So he was paying extra-keen attention as they returned to the Alcethmeret from the dinner they had attended at Lord Beshelar’s apartments, and was able to give the courier gossipping with Csevet an extra instant to get his filthy feet off the desk and stand up like a reasonably well-raised person and not a discredit to all of them.

Telimezh fixed him with what he knew was a particularly evil glare, then spared one for Csevet.

“Is Himself in good humor?” Csevet murmured urgently, standing up, apparently impervious to Telimezh’s attempts at intimidation.

It was a good reminder that Telimezh’s own mood mattered not at all. And a rebuke: he didn’t know. He had time only to grimace uncertainly at Csevet before Kiru and Edrehasivar came through the door.

Himself spotted the courier immediately, and said, with more eagerness than he normally allowed himself, “Ah! Azhalet! Were you able to deliver the message?”

Azhalet drew himself up a little, but rather than protesting his own competence he threw a glance at Csevet briefly, then fixed his expression into the unmistakable aspect of a graceful bearer of bad news. “We were,” he said, with some hesitation. “But it took more than one attempt, and we fear it stirred up some ill-feeling in the household. It was deemed not seemly, you see, for a message to be so constrained in its delivery, though there seemed to be some conflict over whether the unseemliness was a lack of trust of the family, or the very fact of there being anything your Serenity would want to say to Dach’osmin Ceredin that could not be said in front of others.”

Telimezh looked at Himself in dismay; it was ludicrous, on the face of it. The marriage contract was already signed. There was no impropriety in wishing for private communication. Any nobleman would be justified in throwing a fit, and Telimezh braced himself for one, but of course, this was not any nobleman: this was Edrehasivar VII, who simply paled in dismay, pressing a hand to his chest.

Azhalet bowed his head apologetically. “And so Dach’osmin Ceredin said she would send a reply as soon as she might, and regretted that she could not assure the privacy of your correspondence, but then promised she was working on a solution to the problem which she would send shortly.”

Edrehasivar looked to Csevet. “Have we done ill?” he cried, dismayed. “Should we not have-- we knew not it was unseemly to desire privacy in a letter, of all things.” He blamed himself, and Telimezh gritted his teeth against a desire to tell him not to.

“You have done nothing wrong, Serenity,” Csevet said, and added, with some fervency, “we would have cautioned you, were there any possible impropriety in your conduct. No, Dach’osmerrem Ceredin is unreasonable in this matter. You have every right to expect your correspondence to be read only by the intended recipient.”

Edrehasivar had his hands pressed together, now, fingers interlocked at his waist. “It isn’t that we wished to say anything particularly scandalous,” he said, and he was blushing, in the subtle way his slate complexion allowed. “It’s just that I’m never allowed to talk to just one person, it’s always a matter of public record, and public debate, and--” He broke off, collecting himself with an embarrassed air.

“There is nothing untoward in this desire, Serenity,” Csevet said.

Edrehasiver shook his head. “Nevertheless,” he said. “We shall not pursue it. It is inappropriate.” He gestured gracefully to Azhalet. “We will not send a further reply at this time. Thank you for delivering the message, and returning with the reply.”

Azhalet bowed, putting his hand on his chest. “Serenity, it is only my job,” he said.

Csevet coughed. “Serenity, we believe we know what solution Dach’osmin Ceredin will implement. Could you sit with us but a moment before dinner, we would show you.”

Telimezh took up a position by the door, since Kiru had stepped in with interest to look at what Csevet was working out on the desk. He amused himself by watching the courier, who hadn’t been dismissed and so had taken the opportunity to watch curiously as the secretary laid out two pieces of paper and worked out some kind of formula upon them. After a while, Telimezh managed to edge himself a little closer to see that it was a basic substitution cipher. They studied those in their education as officers in the Unthelienese Guard; he hadn’t learned more than simply how to recognize them, but they signaled some matter of importance, in his experience.

Kiru glanced over at him. “Know’st thou aught of this?” she asked quietly.

Telimezh shrugged. “I know what they are,” he said. “As a method of avoiding suspicion, they’re not much good, but if you simply want to restrict who can easily read your messages they’re good for that.”

Csevet looked up alertly. “There was a fad for them among some of the academically-minded ladies, a little while back,” he said. “They were at the time rationalized as good mental exercises, a kind of word puzzle.”

Telimezh made a skeptical face. “They’re used extensively in the Guard,” he said. “For orders that are of diplomatic sensitivity, and the like.”

“So most officers can read it,” Edrehasivar said.

Telimezh shook his head. “No,” he said. “We can’t, we were taught to recognize it but not to use it, most of us.”

“And there are many ciphers,” Csevet said. “This is a basic one, but you can take the principle and work out new ones as you like. Without the key, it’s quite difficult to work out an individual message, even if you can recognize that it’s a cipher.”

Telimezh drifted back to the doorway and let his mind drift away as well. He was so tired, except when he was in bed, when his mind would race. Perhaps tonight he could sleep; the shift was set to change not long after dinner, and he wasn’t likely to need to do anything emotionally taxing between now and then. He knew he needed to be vigilant at all times, of course he knew that, but he also knew that everyone already in the room was safe, so he merely needed to monitor the entrance.

Time gapped; he went to stand by the door of the dining room, and people filed in and out and he dragged himself back to alertness to catalogue each one of them. Kiru came and stood next to him.

“How farest thou?” she whispered. “Look’st tired.”

“I am tired,” Telimezh murmured in response. “Shift’s almost at an end, I’ll be fine.”

She moved away, giving his arm a pat as she left, and he focused on his breathing to stay awake. His head had gone from feeling muzzy to feeling stuffy to actually hurting, by the time the shifts were to change. Kiru gently moved him to stand at the door as Csevet and Edrehasivar went back to whatever paperwork they were doing, after dinner; Telimezh was barely aware enough to be pathetically grateful that they weren’t going out to some event or other where he’d have to assess constantly changing threats, instead of standing here waiting for something to interrupt the sameness.

He clocked movement and identified it as Cala and Beshelar. Beshelar was looking disapproving. Telimezh wondered vaguely if his face would eventually freeze like that. Or perhaps it already had.

Cala frowned too. “Telimezh,” he said, “thou lookst terrible. Art thou coming down with something?”

Telimezh gave him a narrow-eyed glare. “No,” he said. “Everyone is within. They’re learning cryptography and ciphers, I believe.”

“Ciphers,” Cala said. Beshelar looked blank. He might have been highly ranked enough to have been taught at least one or two of the basic ciphers, Telimezh thought.

Telimezh nodded. “I haven’t the head for it tonight,” he said, “so I’m out here lest they bore me to sleep.”

“Why ciphers?” Beshelar mused, looking as though he disapproved. Maybe that was just his face. No, that couldn’t be it.

Telimezh yawned. “Something to do with Himself’s fiancée,” he said. “They’re going to send one another coded messages.” He yawned again, then snapped to greater attention. “Oh, if I weren’t so tired I would go and scare the hell out of Dach’osmerrem Ceredin, she was a right twat today about Himself sending her stepdaughter private letters.” His accent slipped, and he let it go, because it added color to the declaration. Beshelar looked shocked. Cala laughed.

“Was his Serenity much put out by it?” Beshelar asked, his attention sharpening to a promising glint.

Telimezh gestured with his hand, a so-so kind of gesture. “He was a little upset,” he said.

“We can’t kill his future stepmother-in-law,” Cala said, “so come off it, both of you.”

“We wouldn’t _kill_ her,” Beshelar protested humorlessly.

“No, I plan to leave it to Aisava,” Telimezh said. “He’s begun the counterintelligence campaign.” He yawned again. “Good luck with it,” he said to Beshelar, and Beshelar nodded back, his grim expression melting to one of faint resignation just for a moment.

  


Csethiro had stayed up half the night, first writing up an explanation of how a cipher was used, then writing out a key to an example cipher. The final thing was that she was glad she’d written herself a rough draft of the manual she’d compiled for Maia before copying the whole thing over in a fair hand for him, so that she could refer to the page numbers and diagram numbers and know exactly what he would be seeing in response. Finally, she wrote a message, in cipher, explaining that as she’d been researching for the manual, she’d found herself most intrigued by the description on page 5, illustrated in figure 4 on that page, because she had found in an adventure novel a reference to the act depicted therein long before she’d begun the research. She was quite interested to know if it worked the way it had seemed to in the novel, because the novel’s heroine had seemed utterly thrilled with it.

She hesitated a bit, and contemplated starting the ciphered passage over, because in retrospect it seemed too bold; page 5 was the listing of the acts to give sexual gratification without risking conception, and figure 4 had featured a woman receiving stimulation to her genitals from the mouth of her partner. Csethiro had been quite young when she’d read a lurid novel rather too adult for her, and it had featured a young noblewoman debauched by a rakish scoundrel, but one of the more vivid scenes had featured him pleasuring her with his mouth until she had fainted in ecstasy. Csethiro, with the perspective of age if not a great deal of experience, was fairly certain nobody truly fainted of ecstasy, but she had a pretty good idea of what the text had truly intended by that.

But she determined, in the end, to send the letter; perhaps her sweet young inexperienced Emperor was going to turn out to be too squeamish to pleasure her with his mouth, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t talk about it.

She left the family apartments to hire a courier, rather than letting her stepmother see her do it. Whether the woman had been chastened by the contents of Maia’s letter or not remained to be seen; she’d left Csethiro in peace the rest of the night, and Csethiro’s father had wordlessly slid the letter under her bedroom door at some point in the evening.

Spring was coming soon.

  


Deret Beshelar had spent his night shift sort of guiltily wondering if he was ever going to take his turn in the bedchamber again. Edrehasivar had hesitated for a long moment, and had very tentatively looked toward Cala, who had spared him whatever his hesitation was and politely asked if he’d prefer him. Himself had seemed relieved by this, and that was all the discussion necessary, so Beshelar had tried not to also seem relieved and had gone out into the anteroom again.

He knew it was awkwardness about sex, and he knew they were all going to have to get over it, and he knew it was surely within him to be an adult about this, but it was so much easier to let Cala deal with it.

And out in the anteroom, he had a lot more freedom to move around, and do things like calisthenics and sword posture exercises and the like, which he was starting to wonder when he was meant to be keeping up on. He carved out time from his rest periods sometimes, but it was so tempting to just sleep through them, and without any commanding officers to demand it of him, he could see a long and grim struggle with himself to keep it up. It was vastly easier when he had his night shifts free like this, and he worked himself to a good, healthy glow of exertion, and then gave himself a nice long cooldown, all without ever really leaving his post. If only he could do this every night shift.

But the guilt of it would kill him; Cala was in there having to hold himself motionless, having spent whatever awkward interlude listening to whatever it was he had to listen to. Deret was very carefully not allowing himself to imagine it.

He didn’t know what he was going to do about it.

The training hadn’t covered it. He’d assumed it wouldn’t be an issue; he’d lived in barracks for most of his late adolescence and beyond, and one heard all sorts of things. But being a nohecharis was so much more intimate than being a soldier; he paid attention to Edrehasivar’s breathing and posture and person in ways that he never had to his fellow soldiers. Not even the fellow soldiers with whom he’d traded minor sexual favors now and then, in carefully never-too-intimate ways that didn’t offend his sense of how such things ought to be morally conducted.

Incidentally, that was the sort of thing he didn’t have time for now either. Sword and weapons practice, calisthenics, mutual masturbation. None of which he’d thought of as exceptionally important, all of which he was starting to feel the lack of, now.

In the morning he’d been possibly too guiltily attentive, and Edrehasivar had given him one of his unnervingly clear looks, with those pale eyes of his that saw straight through you and lit up what you’d hidden from yourself. The worst part was how Himself would clearly see whatever the problem was, and then somehow, unerringly blame himself for it. Deret followed the young emperor to the breakfast table with a great cold knot of shame in his belly, knowing Edrehasivar was somehow inscrutably beating himself up over being self-conscious about Deret being, historically, too much of an uptight asshole to be trusted not to embarrass everyone over basic bodily and social functions.

It was a stupid mess, and Deret was handling it badly, and worse, didn’t know how to fix it.

He was a little relieved to see that Telimezh looked better this morning. He’d been noticing the other lieutenant looking a bit threadbare lately, but they overlapped so little it wasn’t like he could possibly find out what the problem was. And, also, Deret was aware of being generally considered a judgy asshole by literally everyone, so possibly Telimezh would be glad to avoid his interference anyway. It wasn’t like he’d know what advice to give.

He was curious whether Himself was comfortable enough to let Telimezh watch him in his sleep, though. He’d been consoling himself that perhaps it was a maza thing, that he needed his spirit guarded, but it was likely just him Edrehasivar was avoiding.

Deret was silent, brooding on the walk back to the nohecharei apartments. (They were luxurious, compared to the barracks, and while Deret could have shared a room and probably even hot-sheeted a bunk with Telimezh, he didn’t have to. He still wasn’t used to it, and still kept everything he owned in the trunk at the foot of his bed.)

Cala sighed. “Well,” he said, sitting down to remove his boots.

Deret stood, desperately uncomfortable. In a moment, he finally blurted, “Cala, what must I do to earn back his trust?”

Cala blinked up at him, as if he hadn’t been expecting the question. Well, perhaps he hadn’t. “What must-- I’m sure I don’t know, Deret,” he said. “He thinks thou wilt judge him because thou judgest everything that passes before thine eyes. I’m sure thy expression will never give away aught that causes him harm because that’s all thy expression normally reveals, that thou dost disapprove of everyone and everything thou ever didst see. Honestly it is a useful quality in a nohecharis and indubitably why thou wast so easily chosen for the job, but it makes thee not the best suited to the attendance of a nervous and abused youth facing so massively potentially embarrassing an ordeal as losing his virginity in more or less public spectacle.”

Deret had earnestly desired honesty from Cala, and now that he had it, it felt rather like he’d been kicked in the gut. He managed a breath, nodded blindly, and left the room, stumbling into his bedroom and sitting down heavily on the trunk that served him as a chair.

He breathed for a little while, shakily, then collected himself enough to get his boots off. He knew he’d been given this assignment to get him out of his commanding officer’s hair. He knew he hadn’t been popular; he’d never been good at making friends, and a large part of climbing the ranks of the Guard was in making connections with other officers in a way he’d just never been good at. But he’d been foolish enough to think none of that mattered here, that his devotion would be enough--

Well, it didn’t matter. His lord didn’t have to like him. Edrehasivar had more options now than he had when he’d needed Cala and Deret to accompany him during his coronation vigil.

Deret stood up and undressed himself efficiently, putting his outer clothes away and the inner ones into the laundry hamper where the staff would collect them. He took his robe out of his trunk and put it on, and went out, intending to go to the household’s bathing room. Cala was still sitting in the anteroom.

“I’m sorry,” Cala said awkwardly, “I said that more harshly than I meant to.”

“But thou toldst the truth,” Deret said, “so I thank thee.”

“It was needlessly unkind,” Cala said.

Deret looked at him. “Apparently, so am I,” he said. “I reap as I sow.” And with that, he left. When he came back, Cala was gone, presumably into his bedroom to sleep. Deret went to do the same. Ironic, he thought, that with presumably more to trouble his mind then Telimezh, he had no trouble sleeping, but his body was ever a brute and slid easily into repose, especially after his good work-out of the unattended night shift.

He woke suddenly as the door to the suite opened and closed. The scullery-maid, sent by the kitchen master to wake them. He yawned, stretched, and sat up as she scratched at his door, then pushed it open. “Thank’ee,” he said blurrily.

She bore an uncharacteristic expression of distress. “Lieutenant,” she said timidly, “I am sorry, I forgot, I’ve come late.”

“What’s the clock?” Deret asked, stomach dropping in dread.

“It’s nearly ten to three,” she said, cringing. “And Himself’s at the Rose Room.”

A savage reply was about to tear its way out of Deret’s throat-- ten minutes to dress and get themselves all the way up to the Rose Room?-- but he choked on it, gathered himself, and said, “It’s not thy fault. Canst go and tell Lieutenant Telimezh what has befallen?”

“Thy luncheon,” she fretted, twisting her hands at her waist.

“There’s no help for it,” he said, and swung out of bed to go wake Cala.

His hair was still damp, and no time to comb it properly; he twisted it hastily into its correct topknot, shoved himself into his uniform, managed not to growl at Cala whose toilette was never so exacting and whose shabby blue robe, a discredit to his entire office, took less than half the time to button that Deret’s shirt and jerkin did, and they set off down the hall with Deret’s baldric over his arm as he still frantically worked on his jerkin buttons.

“Did you shout terribly at her?” Cala asked. “I didn’t hear.”

“No,” Deret said stiffly. He would have. He was a fright, no wonder no one liked him. Cala took his baldric off his arm and held it for him as they walked, so he could more easily reach his buttons; he’d missed one, and so half of them were done crookedly, so he had to start over.

He barely finished the last one with scant time for Cala to throw his baldric over his head before they reached the entrance to the Rose Room. Telimezh was standing in the entryway, looking a credit to his rank, unlike Beshelar currently was, and regarded them with some surprise as they approach.

“Yazhio said you’d be late,” he said.

“Did she say why?” Cala asked.

“Oh, she did,” Telimezh said. “I thought she’d cry. Beshelar, how much didst thou _shout_ at her?”

“I didn’t,” Deret said, too dejected to be cross about it. Telimezh gave him a long, measuring look, then thinned his lips and reached up to fix some of Deret’s topknot, which hadn’t entirely gone through the tie.

“A moment,” he said, and Deret gritted his teeth against the tug as Telimezh kept working on his hair. He hadn’t had time to check it, and of course Cala looked like an unmade bed at all times and wouldn’t notice if Deret’s hair all stuck straight up. Telimezh fixed the fall of his shirt collar too where it was incorrectly bunched under the jerkin, his face impassive but with a kind cast to it, and then gave him an assessing look and a pat on the shoulder. “Better. Thou lookst like the wooden soldier thou art now, Beshelar.”

“Thank’ee,” Deret said, grim. A wooden soldier. He was. Like a character out of a michen-opera, or a puppet play. They went inside, and waited until the Emperor had finished his current business to take up their positions. Kiru went out for a moment to talk to Cala, and Deret took up his post behind the Emperor, who hadn’t looked up and didn’t seem to notice the shift change had happened.

That happened sometimes, and it could be entertaining to see how long it was before anyone noticed, but sometimes it was just depressing to realize that a large number of people who interacted very frequently with the Emperor simply didn’t realize that Deret and Telimezh were two different people. Telimezh was half a hand taller than Deret, and broader of shoulder too, though skinnier in the rest of his build, and his features were much sharper, his eyes pale and almost greenish, and his voice entirely different, much clearer, but their uniforms were the same and they were functionally invisible.

Sometimes, it was clear too that even Edrehasivar didn’t know which of them was present. Which was understandable; they weren’t individually important, they just filled a role that had to be constant and unvarying. But it was sometimes discouraging, to know one spent a day entirely unremarked-upon.

It was just as well, Deret thought bleakly, watching the next petitioner shuffle nervously into the room, that he was a wooden soldier: this was a job for a wooden soldier. This petitioner did notice him, and looked away terrified by him, and Deret wondered what expression his face held.

Probably disapproval, since that was what he did all the time.

Well, it was his job, so he glowered forbiddingly at everyone and idly noted which of them noticed and which of them were so overawed by the Emperor they didn’t even see him.

Aisava was off to one side with a little writing-table, and was busily taking down notes. When Beshelar grew tired of glowering at petitioners he shifted a little so he could look at the table; he’d been expecting Cala to come back and take over to stare dreamily over the Emperor’s shoulder at nothing so that Beshelar could glower at people from the door, but the maza had apparently decided the door was just as good a place to stare dreamily at nothing.

The notes seemed mostly procedural, though there was one place where Csevet had written _fuck this person entirely_ and underlined the last word three times. Deret decided it was a shame he hadn’t been present to glower at that person. Interestingly, pushed to one side of the writing table was a letter densely written in block barzhad capitals in such an arrangement that Deret instantly recognized a cipher. His attention sharpened; they were normally used for sensitive military communications. Then he remembered the previous day’s discussion of ciphers, and wondered whether this were one under composition or awaiting decipherment.

There was a little notecard with the key sitting next to the letter, Beshelar realized, and he disapproved; that was basic operational security, not to leave them lying out together. He thought of going and moving the card so that at least it was not visible, but he would have to leave his post to do so, which would call even more attention to the lapse, so he decided against it.

His attention kept straying back to the letter. It was a simple substitution cipher, and there was a blank sheet of paper next to it with a few scrawled letters in the Emperor’s hand. They were nonsense, and after another moment of glowering at the next petitioner, Deret looked back over and realized he’d misunderstood the key and was laboriously transcribing entirely the wrong solution. He’d wondered if Aisava really was trained in ciphers, and this told him that either he wasn’t, or Edrehasivar had refused help. Aisava had been under the Lord Chancellor’s department, and Deret didn’t think they had much stock in ciphered communications.

The audience ended, and Cala closed the door and came inside to speak to Himself. “Oh, we had not-- when did the shift change?” Edrehasivar said with a rueful laugh, looking around to see Deret, who wished he’d managed to dredge up a smile but it was too late: by the time he thought of it, Himself had already looked away, back to Cala, who was answering for both of them.

Deret moved over to the writing desk and bent over it, which alarmed Aisava somewhat. Ignoring him, Deret pulled the ciphered letter over and crossed out the Emperor’s incorrect beginning of a solution. “Should’st not leave the key and message visible at the same time,” he murmured to Aisava. “Hast thou been trained to work these?”

“N- no,” Csevet admitted quietly. “But it’s straightforward enough. Hast thou?”

“Yes,” Deret said. “Shoulds’t _never_ have the key visible, dost thou understand?”

“Yes,” Csevet said uncertainly, frowning. “Only-- it’s just a personal note, ‘tisn’t statecraft.”

“ _Anything_ of the Emperor’s correspondence is statecraft,” Beshelar said. “And anyone who knows what a cipher is will recognize it instantly, and assume it to be important. I know not who today’s petitioners were but neither dost thou, not truly, not who they might be in contact with or even working for. Even an inconsequential thing can take on a seeming of great importance if it appears thou’rt trying to keep it secret, and some ill actor may exploit that.”

He glanced up and realized that Himself was watching them, and listening. Well, it was too late to take it back, and it was true. Even a foolish love-note would take on great significance if it was dressed up as an elaborate secret.

Edrehasivar said unhappily, “We were only thinking of it as an idle game, but you are correct.”

 _Thou sour-faced wooden martinet_ , Deret thought, _canst thou even let the boy have an instant of fun_ ? He squashed it: _No, thy job is to protect him, and he needs a sour-faced wooden martinet always assuming the worst of everything for that_. “We are sorry, Serenity,” he said, looking down. “But. An there is a spare moment today, we are at your service and will teach you properly how to use ciphers, and how to handle them securely. You can use them to play idle games, but they must be handled correctly lest others make assumptions.”

Blessedly, Himself’s lovely face brightened a little at that, the gray eyes lighting from the inside with curiosity. “We’d like that, Lieutenant,” he said.

This time, Deret managed to smile at him, a little.


	4. Scheduling

It was an excess of temper that had led Cala to over-blunt honesty with Beshelar earlier and he’d gone to bed regretting it. Beshelar was an honest and well-intentioned person and didn’t deserve to be scorned for the very things that made him an ideal nohecharis for the honest, well-intentioned Edrehasivar. Not having a moment to discuss it before their shift was doubly unfortunate. Cala had noticed Beshelar’s miniscule flinch at Telimezh’s innocent  _ wooden soldier _ comment, though it had clearly been meant kindly enough. He wished, not for the first time, that he had time to talk to Kiru, whose greater life experience would perhaps have equipped her with some more diplomatic tools to handle such a situation. 

But if Beshelar was anything, it was dutiful to a fault, and he seemed to have taken the observation to heart. His offer to teach ciphers had been well-received along with his disapproving cautions, which did on reflection seem well-founded. And so in the evening before dinner, Cala watched Beshelar sit in Csevet’s place at one side of the desk as the Emperor sat next to him, with Csevet hovering in great interest, and began to neatly decipher the letter from Dach’osmin Ceredin.

The opening line was Edrehasivar’s given name, Maia, and his delight as he puzzled it out for himself under Beshelar’s surprisingly patient guidance was infectious; Cala found himself beaming at Csevet as if they two were proud parents. It was absurd, but they had little enough of this kind of joy to spare, and Cala was well aware it was at the expense of a report the Emperor was supposed to be reading. 

Beshelar went through some of the next line, but paused after they had worked for a few moments, and set the pen down. “Serenity,” he said, “we hesitate to go farther, as we are aware the entire point of this is that you might have  _ private _ correspondence.”

Cala unabashedly craned his neck to read what they had so far. 

“MAIA, AS I WAS RESEARCHING FOR THE MANUAL I SENT TO THEE I WAS PARTICULARLY INTRIGUED BY…”

Ah. Yes. But surely Beshelar had to understand how important it was, that they all knew what was being discussed so that they knew to be discreet about it. 

“We think we understand well enough to continue,” Csevet said, stepping forward. Beshelar fixed him with a considering look, then turned to look at Edrehasivar. 

“Our question was whether you felt that you might attempt to continue on your own, Serenity,” he said firmly. “If you do not, we will of course continue or desist at your pleasure.” He had gone a little pink at the tips of his ears, but continued with firm resolve. “We might remind you that we are of your household and our discretion is absolute, but we understand you may be more comfortable receiving assistance from another, and that is your prerogative.” He hesitated a moment, then added, a little lower, “I just think it important that you know that while there isn’t much real privacy I can give you, and still do my job, I would give you what I can.”

Edrehasivar was looking wide-eyed back at him, and seemed-- touched, that was it. He was touched. It seemed to do him good, Cala had noticed, when he was able to pry emotional declarations out of Beshelar. 

Slowly, Edrehasivar smiled, a tiny smile but a sincere one. “Thank you,” he said. “We’ll try to continue on our own, later, although I think we need to pause now to resume our real duties.” 

Beshelar did not smile in return, but he looked pleased. “Now,” he said, returning to businesslike crispness, “here is the trick, when you have begun to become reasonably confident in your work: keep the key hidden under a flap of the envelope, and only flip it back to check it. Do not have it uncovered except when your eyes are actively upon it. Otherwise, keep it hidden, and if you need to move away from your workspace, hide the letter from view and bring the cipher key with you, or keep it somewhere else separate from the letter.”

Edrehasivar nodded solemnly, and Beshelar stood up, suddenly looking self-conscious. Csevet took his place, holding the report the Emperor was to have been reading all this time, and Beshelar went over to the door, shaking out his hand. Cala caught his eyes and nodded seriously, approvingly, and Beshelar blushed slightly and looked away. 

  
  


Csethiro was about to retire to her bedroom when someone came to the apartment door, and in a moment the housekeeper came and fetched her. “It’s a visitor for you,” she said.

It was quite late, shockingly so, and she came out with some trepidation; she had already taken off the formal jacket that went with her dress, and was wearing a housecoat, but it seemed urgent. Her stepmother came out as well, already in a dressing-gown. “What is it now?” she demanded. 

Csethiro shook her head, and went to the entryway. She was astonished to recognize that it was one of Maia’s nohecharei. “What’s toward?” she asked in alarm, thinking of some calamity, a coup, an emergency, a crisis--

The nohecharis held up a hand. “It is all right,” he said, “we are not yet on duty.” He bowed, and produced a small envelope. “My opposite number, Lieutenant Beshelar, volunteered to stay past the end of his shift so that we could run this over to you. His Serenity is greatly delighted by your puzzle of words, but we his guardsmen have informed him that one must never send a cipher key together with its message, and never by the pneumatics, so this is the key. The puzzle will come tomorrow.” And he smiled at her. 

She took the envelope, torn between enchantment and alarm. They could have had any courier run this over to her, why abuse a nohecharis so? “Thank you,” she said, running her fingers over the seal. 

Her stepmother was in the doorway now, behind her, and she could feel the weight of the woman’s gaze. The nohecharis lifted his eyes to her, and raised an eyebrow. “There is not and never has been any impropriety in a man wanting to have private correspondence with a woman with whom he has signed a marriage contract,” he said, voice gone steely, and then his gaze returned to her and he smiled again, and bowed slightly. Behind her, she heard the rustle as her stepmother abruptly turned and left.

It was a flagrant and ostentatious display of power, to have a nohecharis run an errand, but from the man’s demeanor-- Csethiro suddenly understood, it had been their idea, the nohecharei. Maia would never have asked for such a thing. Would he? She had to know. “Whose idea was this?” she asked. 

The nohecharis smiled. “Lieutenant Beshelar’s,” he said. “He was going to come himself, but-- we were the one on duty when the courier came back the last time, and his tale offended us personally, so we asked if we could come instead.” His expression hardened again. “Himself was distraught. We don’t like that.”

“Forgive us,” Csethiro said, “but we do not know your name.”

“Lieutenant Bunu Telimezh,” he said. “At your service.” He sketched her a salute. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, we must go and relieve Lieutenant Beshelar.”

  
  
  
  


Csevet was really trying not to look obnoxiously well-laid but Echelo saw him as he came in and put her hands on her hips. “Csevet,” she said.

“What,” he said innocently. He’d spent most of the night with Azhalet, and it had been not only a good romp but an all-around comforting experience. Azhalet had known him a long time, and could intelligently comment on how he’d changed and how he was the same after his sudden elevation in fortune. He could also intelligently comment on Csevet’s enormous crush on his Emperor, and had done so by more or less echoing it. Somehow, that made it easier to bear. 

Echelo rolled her eyes. “Thou lookst dastardly smug,” she said. 

Csevet blushed. “I do not,” he said. 

“Oh come off it,” she said. “As long as thou’dst not get anyone pregnant, I’ll not judge thee.”

Csevet blushed deeper. “No chance,” he said. “It was only a bit of harmless fun, Echelo, don’t tease me so!”

“Psht,” she said, “thou deserv’st a bit of that, after how hard thou’st been working. Come get some tea.”

He followed her into the kitchen and accepted a cup of strong black tea, and some sugar, and perched on the edge of a stool and watched some of the bustling as the household started work for the day. Nemer was drinking tea, too, and eating a bit of toast as he stood, and he tipped his head at Csevet and said, “You look chipper today.”

“Doesn’t he?” Echelo said. “Well he says nobody’s pregnant from it, so we can’t begrudge him.”

“Wha-hey,” Nemer said, and came over and clinked his teacup against Csevet’s as if they were glasses of cordial. “Good someone’s getting some here and there.” 

“Oh stop,” Csevet said, “you all are the worst.” He stood up from the stool and turned and nearly ran straight into Deret Beshelar, who was half an hour early for his shift and looked exhausted.

“Good morning,” Beshelar said, “I had hoped to find thee here. Echelo, please could I have a cup of strong tea?”

“Of course,” Echelo said, and looked him up and down, then looked at Csevet. “The two of you could not be more the opposite this morning if you tried.”

“What’s the reverse of getting laid?” Nemer asked.

Csevet wished perhaps that the floor would open up and swallow him, because now Beshelar was looking at him with a confused and slightly disgusted air, which was a good sight worse than his normal disapproval. “Stop it,” Csevet said to Nemer, less good-naturedly than before. 

Nemer patted Beshelar on the shoulder. “Thou lookst like thou wast reverse-fucked, mate,” he said. “Anti-fucked, mayhap.”

Beshelar rolled his eyes. “I slept poorly,” he said. “Who fucked who?”

“Aisava fucked somebody,” Nemer said. 

“Oh let him be,” Echelo said, coming back with Beshelar’s tea. She put it into his hand and paused to look at him. “He’s right, though, thou looks’t terrible. Art thou coming down with aught?”

“No,” Beshelar said crossly.

“Thou’rt early,” Csevet noted, eager to deflect discussion from his putative state of satiety. “Is aught amiss?”

“No,” Beshelar said, giving up on crossness. “I came to speak with thee, if anyone would leave off hassling me for an instant.”

“Let’s to the dining room, then,” Csevet said, “I’ll be needing to go over the day’s agenda anyway. What’s thy concern?”

“Mayhap thou canst get him laid too,” Nemer said with false earnestness.

Beshelar bore it with much better humor than Csevet had expected. “Oh, mayhap,” the nohecharis said, deadpan, “gods know that’s just what I need, in my copious free time. Maybe he can save us both time and fuck me himself directly.”

Nemer cackled in wicked delight, and betook himself out of the room, mercifully. Csevet tried studiously to meditate his ears back to their proper color, as he made his way out to the dining room with a precarious plate of toast. Beshelar followed him, and as the door shut behind them, said, “Didst thou really?”

“Did I really what?” Csevet asked, all his attempts to stop blushing wasted. 

Beshelar eyed him, but the disapproval did not materialize, and he just sat down at the table and set down the small folder of papers he’d been carrying. “We wrote out the guidelines we were taught for making ciphers,” he said, “and a number of sample cipher keys, for his Serenity’s use and for your use in teaching them to him.”

Csevet stared at the papers in the folder. Beshelar had an un-polished hand, and had written all in the barzhad script; it could not be more apparent that he’d been taught largely under the auspices of the guard, and had little reason to write often in his life. “This is,” Csevet said, taking the folder and flipping through it.

Inexplicably, when he glanced up, Beshelar had flushed somewhat, ears low. “I know my handwriting’s not,” and he hesitated. “Well, I can’t spell. But spelling’s only important when you encode the messages. How to come up with the cipher keys is something else, and I’m good enough at that. Thou’rt more than quick-witted enough to-- and his Serenity, too, he’s not slow, it ought to be easy for either of you to--”

Csevet realized that Beshelar was apologizing. “This is  _ fantastic _ ,” he said. “Beshelar, this is-- this is so much work, that I had no time to do-- I cannot thank thee enough for this.”

Beshelar fidgeted with the edge of the folder. “I-- I’m not using that training for aught else,” he said. 

Csevet looked at him, really looked in a way he had not before. Beshelar wasn’t much older than he himself was, really, a handful of years at most. And he understood, suddenly, that this was an apology of sorts, for being so sanctimonious about their discussion of Himself’s correspondence. 

He smiled, then, and reached out and touched Beshelar’s hand, stopping him from picking at the corner of the folder. “Thou’rt a good man, Deret.”

Beshelar blushed deeper, and didn’t meet his eyes, but didn’t move away either. 

  
  
  


Every couple of weeks, the nohecharei would schedule an overlapping shift change with some extremely predictably boring activity of the Emperor’s, so that they could shove him into a room with no other exits and all sit together for a few moments and talk about their schedule and concerns. Because discussing things in passing was fine for daily stuff, but eventually, it was important to seriously compare notes. It being the end of his shift, Bunu Telimezh had already taken up his position in the Tortoise Room. Himself was at the desk with Aisava, there were guards at the doors, and Kiru had gone and retrieved them a pot of tea so that they could sit comfortably around the small table in the room.

Beshelar came in with an armload of papers, and Cala, walking behind him, made a humorous but hard-to-read face, bug-eyed with an exaggerated frown. Bunu managed not to react, instead giving Beshelar a respectful nod. He was still intimidated by the fellow, even if he’d shown signs of being a reasonable person over these last few weeks. 

Beshelar set his papers down on the desk, and set to organizing them. Kiru came over from where she’d been contributing to whatever Himself and Aisava were discussing, and Cala poured them tea before he sat down. 

“Shift lengths,” Beshelar said. He was generally a little bit self-important, and the other three had all agreed to just let him run the meetings and consider himself in charge. It worked out, because he didn’t actually impose any decisions on them. Bunu was gradually starting to let himself notice that Beshelar didn’t actually think he was in charge, he just felt like he had to own responsibility for everything. Bunu was someday going to conduct experiments with taking over things, but not soon. “Is everyone all right with the shift lengths? We had discussed revisiting those. Are you getting enough sleep, Telimezh?”

Bunu made a face. “We hate to admit that you were right about longer shifts,” he said. To Kiru he added, “And your silly meditation.”

“You do seem much improved, though,” Kiru said. They’d had a rocky patch when she’d offered to use a maz to help him sleep, but fortunately she’d pretty much immediately realized why he had not been receptive to that, and had redirected nicely into teaching him basic meditation techniques instead. 

“I am,” Bunu said, “thank you.” 

“Our next option was to offer to switch up to let your team handle a greater proportion of the overnights,” Beshelar said. “Keep that in mind, should you have any future issues.” 

Bunu tried not to bristle at that. “We are capable,” he said, but stopped himself because it sounded sulky and childish.

Beshelar looked him straight in the eye, a neutral and considering look, and Bunu made himself look back and see that there was no condescension or, for once, disapproval. “We know this,” Beshelar said. “We have no doubts of your capability, Telimezh. Did not Edrehasivar ask you himself to continue? As he has every faith in you, so do we also. But there is no need for you to hurt yourself to prove it. We have decades of this ahead of us and it’s worth taking the time to care for one another.”

“That’s staggeringly earnest of you,” Bunu said, unable to help himself. “Thank you.”

Deadpan, Beshelar said, “Staggeringly Earnest is what our grandmother used to call us.”

They all laughed at that, except Beshelar, but Beshelar actually allowed himself to grin. It was enough that Bunu glanced over and noticed Himself and Aisava staring at them in bemusement. The room wasn’t large enough that their conversation was inaudible, but they probably had not been paying attention before the laughter.

“So, that said,” Kiru put in, “perhaps we can keep the overnights as they are, for now, but it is good to know that is an option, should  _ any _ of us require it, going forward. We had been wondering, though, can it be true that there is  _ never _ a third set of nohecharei, not even for emergencies?”

Beshelar tapped one of the stacks of papers. “We asked the archivist to research that,” he said. “And it is something that has been inconsistently dealt with, in the past.”

“Oh,” Kiru said. “We see we were not alone in considering this.”

“Well,” Beshelar said. “Should one of us be injured, or the like-- we had been wondering almost from our first day of this job, honestly. And what we think, based on the results of the research, is that it would not go amiss for us to line up a few candidates for substitutes, and trial them on an individual basis on days with established routines. We think it would be much more agreeable to know that in an emergency, there were substitutes with whom we had previously worked, that we knew we could trust. But we had not gone beyond that, in our thinking.”

Maybe, Bunu thought, he  _ would _ just leave Beshelar in charge of things. “We thought we were out of mazei,” he put in.

Cala cleared his throat. “We are out of mazei who were interested in volunteering themselves for an unknown quantity like our dear Emperor was last month,” he said. “Now that he has survived two major coup attempts and only lost one maza in the process, there is more interest.”

Bunu bristled, and noticed Beshelar doing the same. “We don’t want to work with fair-weather mazei,” Bunu said. 

“It’s not quite so simple as that,” Cala said. 

“Maybe it is,” Bunu said, and Beshelar was glowering in agreement. 

“Better that than faithless ones,” Kiru put in. “Mazei who were honest that they were uncertain are infinitely preferable to ones who spoke fealty and enacted treachery.”

Everyone was silent for a moment, at that, and Kiru let it spool out before concluding, “So leave the vetting of the mazei to us.”

Bunu looked down, chastened, but snuck a glance at Beshelar, who was looking thoughtfully at Cala but turned his gaze to meet Bunu’s in a moment. “Fair enough,” he said, looking grimly at Bunu. He added, after a moment, “Mayhap we vet these candidates by having them on as a third with our regular pairs for a time, first, the way that both guards and mazei may evaluate them.”

Bunu sucked in a breath, and looked down. It felt like chastisement. Certainly, he had not been able to evaluate his first maza partner on his own. Kiru nudged his shoulder, and when he looked back up, Beshelar was giving him a softer look. “None of us saw it,” Beshelar said. “But all of us together would be harder to fool.”

“If there’s anyone who should have seen it,” Cala began, ears low with misery, but Kiru reached out and put her hand on his arm. 

They all sat in silence for a moment, and then Beshelar cleared his throat and shuffled his papers. “So we’ll set that aside and bring it up to his Serenity later, and see what he thinks, but in the meantime, we are all in agreement to this plan to try out potential substitutes so that should an emergency arise, we have already-prepared candidates to hand.”

“Agreed,” Cala said, and Kiru and Bunu murmured their assent. 

“The next thing we must discuss,” Beshelar said, pulling out a lovely gridded calendar that Bunu noticed was conspicuously in Aisava’s handwriting, “is the matter of the wedding.”

Kiru made a joyful little noise. “Oh, we’re looking forward to it so much,” she said. 

“We are going to have to liase with both the Unthelienese Guard and the half-eshpekh of the Hezethoreise Guard with Captain Veshenka,” Beshelar said. “The day itself, and the ceremony, are going to be a long and complicated ordeal. That said, we assume none of us is going to want to miss any of it.”

Cala was shaking his head, and Bunu smiled. “No,” he said, “we think all of us will want to be there.”

Beshelar moved a paper with a list written on it to the front. A schedule, also in Aisava’s handwriting. “There are both public and private events, starting before dawn and ending after dawn the next day. We assume there’s no point in telling any of us to get any sleep at any point, however.”

“No,” Kiru said cheerfully.

“Likewise, there will be drinking,” Beshelar said, “and we assume all of us know well enough never to exceed one small serving of any beverage in the span of an hour during or prior to any shift, so we can move straight past that.”

Bunu hadn’t heard it put so succinctly before, so he just nodded. “It’s not a party for us, anyway,” he put in.

“Well,” Kiru said. “We can enjoy it nonetheless, we just need to stay focused too. But we’re never happier than when we’re working.”

Beshelar nodded. “So, all that said, who wants to attend the ceremony as a spectator, and who wants to actually work during the ceremony?”

They hashed that out, consulting the timetable and deciding where there would be breathing space to trade places. “Before we decide,” Beshelar said, once they’d determined when the shifts should be, “we should decide who is, ah, interested in, ah.” He paused. “Supervising the wedding night,” he concluded.

“Ah,” Kiru said. 

“Because that,” Beshelar said, and on the paper with the timetable, measured the span of the shifts with his fingers. “Determines who truly ought to stand up for the wedding ceremony.” He looked apologetic.

Cala shrugged, looking at Kiru. “It’s likely to be one of the two of us,” he said, “and perhaps we should ask Himself who he’d prefer, and work backwards from there?”

No one had any objection. They were far enough out that they could manage the shift lengths to bring about either outcome. “You don’t always have to give yourself the long working shifts and short rest shifts when we need to balance,” Bunu suggested.

Beshelar looked up, frowning, and looked over at Cala. 

“We don’t mind,” Cala said. “At present, neither of us has had any problem with the sleep schedule. We don’t want to upset yours.”

“We are--” Bunu began.

“We know,” Beshelar said. “We know that, Telimezh. We’d rather coddle you if we can, though, while there’s no other issue.”

“We don’t,” Bunu said, but Cala interrupted this time.

“Let us,” he said. “Please. Until some other crisis comes up that we have to adjust for. We know you’d do the same for us and we’d like to save it until we need it.”

Bunu subsided, reluctantly, and there were no further objections. Kiru put her hand on his arm again, warmly, and he tried to feel good about that. It did give her more time to devote to her healing work, he supposed.

“Then we are agreed,” Beshelar said, “and we’ll abide by His Serenity’s choices both for who to stand in the ceremony and serve at the wedding night chamber. Have we any other concerns?”

No one did. Beshelar looked at each of them in turn, and Bunu last. “It’s an honor serving with each of you,” Beshelar said, and stood up, draining his teacup. He was an officious prick, but his heart was in the right place, and Bunu found himself smiling as he drained his own teacup. 

  
  


At some point, Csethiro decided, her father must have sat her stepmother down and explained to her that her ever-nebulous and grasping control over Csethiro must necessarily come to an end, and the most beneficial course was to be as agreeable as possible to her for the remainder of their time together under a single roof, because nothing else could explain the woman’s sudden attack of sense. Csethiro didn’t have that high an opinion of her father’s cleverness, but this was within his abilities to figure out, certainly. And it wasn’t as if the cues had been subtle; a nohecharis playing errand-boy, of his own accord, was not exactly a small display of power.

Csethiro wasn’t sure her father had understood the implications as she had. Because the point, for her, wasn’t that Edrehasivar had sent far too high-ranking a person to do a simple messenger’s job. The point was that more than one of these not-servants, for nohecharei were  _ absolutely _ not servants, had conspired to do this of their own accord, because Edrehasivar would never ask them to; there were easily dozens of other people he could have sent that would have been both important and emphatic. Sending a nohecharis was inappropriate, but no more so than telling one not to go would have been.

Two summers ago, when she and a few of the other ladies had begun experimenting with ciphers for fun and mild subversion, she had discovered in her research that they were mostly used by the guard and similar military forces. There were no printed materials about that; there were references to military publications on the matter, but none of them were available to her, a civilian. And when they’d inevitably been scolded for using them, it had been on the grounds that such things ought to be reserved for the military. But they’d persevered, because after all they were just number and letter puzzles, and such things weren’t necessarily restricted to any one class of people. 

And she’d sort of forgotten that the Untheliense Guard used them. But, of course, two of the nohecharei were guardsmen. The first ciphered message Edrehasivar sent to her mentioned that one of his nohecharei had taught him how to use the key, and the next message mentioned that the same nohecharis had sat down and worked out a number of cipher keys so they could change their encoding from message to message. 

The cipher was already no longer necessary to use, as no one was threatening to intercept their correspondence anymore, but Csethiro found that it was entertaining in and of itself, so she kept it up. She’d write her messages out in plain text first, in several drafts to refine them which somehow only ever seemed to make them more filthy, and some of them seemed so unfathomably bold that she couldn’t imagine herself sending them, but once they were ciphered it seemed fine, and then she’d burn the originals in the little hearth in her room, and crush up the ashes. It was like an adventure novel with spies, and she found herself wondering if these skills might be useful later once she was really the Empress.

She hoped not, honestly; a nice pleasant reign without a great deal of intrigue would be best, and surely Maia’d survived enough already. She’d had a few discussions with Arbelan, of what to expect, and was brushing up on a few more diplomatic skills. But she reassured herself that there was no harm in preparing for wilder eventualities-- after all, she knew how to duel, she might as well know how to cipher. Perhaps she could get lessons in archery, next. 

At Maia’s next dance lesson she looked at the nohecharei carefully, once she’d done her normal investigation of her fiancée to satisfy herself that he was well. The guardsman wasn’t the one who’d brought her the cipher key, so that meant he was the one who’d composed the cipher keys. Telimezh and Beshelar, were their names; she knew them now, and knew not to overlook them. She hadn’t paid them much mind before; they both looked like toy soldiers to her, formal and correct and perfect, but truly speaking they were both quite young men, and didn’t particularly look alike; Telimezh was tall, green-eyed and slight, Beshelar blue-eyed and squarer, with a really lovely strong jaw that gave him a habitually severe expression. And the woman maza was Kiru; the one here today was Cala. She had never considered it, but did they always work in the same pairs, or did they switch sometimes? She would have to find out. 

Maia looked a little tired, when they first entered, but as soon as she spoke to him he seemed cheerful enough, and his eyes sparkled a little as she leaned in and asked how he was enjoying their correspondence. His hands were so careful on her shoulder or on her waist, but she could recognize, now, for certain, that the carefulness was not distaste at all. 

“I admit,” she said, not quite able to look into his face, “that I am most likely far more bold in writing than I will be in person.”

He laughed softly, a slightly pained sound. “I am infinitely more bold in writing than in person,” he said, “and I fear much of the wedding-night will be spent at opposite corners of the bed frozen in nervousness.”

“Oh,” she said, “no, I shan’t be that bad. I am far too excited. But do not expect me to be very smooth about any of it.”

“I shall keep my expectations wide open,” he said, with a little smile, and she was seized with an overwhelming desire to kiss him. She mastered it, with difficulty. 

“Then thou’rt not too displeased with my boldness,” she went on, when she could speak again. 

“No,” he said. “Art thou disappointed in my timidity?”

“I’ve seen no evidence of timidity,” she said, “but if I do I shall give it deep consideration, and let you know.”

For some reason this made him laugh, and she was unable to do anything but stare at him in dumbstruck affection; he had such a beautiful sparkling laugh, and the more precious for its rarity. She remembered suddenly that she’d been cautioned he was an imbecile, and spared a moment to be grateful that had been such an incorrect bit of gossip.

He’d mastered the formal dances, so she had begun to teach him the faster ones; they allowed less time for talking, but there was something almost unbearably exciting about being breathless in one another’s arms, so close to one another. She led him through one of them next, and he kept up well enough that it was her mistake that tripped them; she stepped on his foot and then they collided, chest to chest, and he had to put his arms around her to hold her up, laughing. 

She wrapped her hands around his arms to support herself, and stopped there, breathing hard; he was so slight, but he was stronger every time they did this. He was visibly growing into himself, and she thought that while in the beginning she might have knocked him over, now he had caught her fairly easily. 

“Thou’rt well?” he asked, laughing, and the blood was moving under his skin and his eyes were bright and lively. 

She managed to nod. “Thy foot?”

He laughed again. “Tis well. Dearest, thou’rt not so substantial a woman as thou seemst to think.” She didn’t want him to let go of her, but he did, gently setting her back onto her feet with his hands on her shoulders. But he paused, and looked at her, touching her face briefly. “Should we pause?”

“Yes,” she said, and if she’d been flushed before, she was burning now. She sat down and accepted a glass of water, fanning herself. 

“The weather’s starting to turn,” he said, gazing out the window. 

“Spring is soon,” she said. “Art thou ready to dance at the wedding?”

“I think so,” he said, and smiled at her. It was dazzling, and when he looked away she needed a moment to recover. As she turned her head she crossed gazes with the nohecharis guardsman, and remembered she’d intended to thank him.

“Lieutenant Beshelar,” she said, pushing herself more upright.

He startled slightly at being addressed, and looked back to her. “Dach’osmin Ceredin,” he said, and bowed.

“We wanted to thank you,” she said. “His Serenity mentioned that you had assisted him in coming up with keys for the word puzzles, and we thought that very generous of your time.”

Charmingly, Beshelar blushed bright pink. He was about her own age, she judged, and well-built but lean, with the broad face and high cheekbones of the local peasants. He might have been chosen because he looked the part, she thought, but she also knew, having looked into it, that he was the one who’d thrown himself on a knife at the Midwinter Ball, so he couldn’t just be decorative.

“We are at our lady’s service,” he said, a little bit indistinctly, as if embarrassed. 

For some reason Maia was beaming at her as if she had done something noteworthy. “Lieutenant Beshelar  _ has _ been very generous with his time,” he said, looking fond and perhaps a little embarrassed. “All the nohecharei have been great supports to us, whether in assistance or advice or mere tolerance, in our attempts to mount an effective courtship.”

She laughed, and looked at Beshelar again. “Have you had a great deal of courtship advice?”

Beshelar’s color deepened. “No, my lady,” he said. “Our sole relevant expertise in all of this has been the cipher keys.”

She noticed that the maza was laughing, so she looped him into the conversation. “Then it is Cala Athmaza who is the lady-killer among you,” she said. 

Cala’s bright blue eyes went wide behind his spectacles. “No, my lady, our contribution has been the tolerance, mostly,” he said, with admirable poise. “Maza are not taught the arts of love.”

“Then who?” she asked. 

“Of all people,” Maia admitted, “the celibate cleric of Csaivo, Kiru Athmaza, has had the most practical advice in most matters.”

“Has she,” Csethiro said, surprised and delighted. “Your household is not very full of married people, is it.”

“Not so far,” Maia said. 

It occurred to her that she had never given a great deal of consideration to the lifestyles of nohecharei before, so she turned and regarded Lieutenant Beshelar again, whose color had mostly returned to normal. “Are most nohecharei celibate?” she asked him. “Or is it just the ones who are clerics also?” Beshelar colored magnificently again, and she pressed, relentlessly: “But you were just a regular guardsman, before, and  _ they  _ can marry.”

“We swear no vows of celibacy,” Cala put in, clearly trying to spare Beshelar, who didn’t seem to have any response at all. “Neither maza nor guards normally do, Kiru is an unusual case in many, many ways. But in effect, yes, nohecharei are prevented by the sheer time constraints of their office from pursuing any kind of family life, so while we’re not obligatorily celibate, that’s the general effect.” 

Maia looked stricken; he clearly hadn’t thought of that, and Csethiro instantly regretted bringing it up, no matter how lovely Beshelar’s blushes were. “I can’t demand that of you,” he said in dismay, “that’s--”

“You demanded nothing, Serenity,” Cala said. “It’s a feature of the office and one which we all considered before we volunteered for it.”

“But,” Maia said. “What a thing to so casually demand!”

“It was no casual demand. We’ve sworn our life to you,” Beshelar said suddenly, unexpectedly fierce, and while Cala had used the plural, he was using the singular formal. “Do not belittle that. An it troubles you, strive instead to earn it.” He spoke quickly and his voice was rough, but it made him sound almost stunningly sincere. They all stared at him, and he dropped his eyes, but raised his chin instead, stubborn and defiant.

“And think on how little your taste was for marriage when first it was suggested you must,” Cala put in more mildly. “It’s not for everyone. We promise you, none of us had to tear ourself away from a heartbroken fiancée to make this commitment instead.”

Beshelar made a faint noise that might have been a laugh or a snort, but it seemed to be agreement rather than negation. 

“These are all good points,” Maia said. “We thank you, we shall think on them. We intended no disrespect to the choices you’ve made.” He held out a hand to Csethiro. “Time grows short, shall we assay the last dance again?”

She put her hand in his and got up, joining him to re-attempt the fast dance. At the end of the lesson, she murmured, “I am quite charmed by all of thy household.”

“Truly,” he said, “I am blessed,” and he sounded genuinely fond. 

  
  



	5. Brotherly Advice

  


Deret was half-enjoying a rare boring night. Himself was engrossed in some business with Aisava, something about the bridge construction process getting to the point of needing some particular funding source, and it was very dry and not diverting at all. Telimezh, at the shift change, stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes, in imitation of someone dead of boredom, and Deret sighed and clapped him on the arm and said “Well, it can’t all be fascinating,” and finished his cup of tea and went and dove headfirst into the boredom.

Perhaps it would really just be a boring night, he had dared to let himself hope, and he could take his turn in the bedchamber once everyone had bored themselves to sleep, and discharge his duty and not feel so bad about it. But as Csevet retired to bed, he sorted through his papers and handed Himself an envelope, and yes, it had the Ceredada seal on it, and the customary barzhad monogram. Deret exchanged glances with Cala, who raised an eyebrow and looked resigned.

It was very cute, and their courtship was so fond as to be entirely unprecedented in Deret’s experience of court gossip, and overall it was good, but he knew what was in that letter, and had done his part to enable it. Had done all he could do, really, though, so maybe he was off the hook for any further involvement.

He went and stood beside Cala as Aisava and Edrehasivar exchanged a few final words, and comfortably assumed his impassive guard face as the Emperor came over toward them. But Himself paused, looking back and forth between them, and thought for a moment, before saying, “Beshelar?”

Deret raised his chin attentively, expecting there to be a specific request, but Edrehasivar turned and continued, and after an instant Deret realized he’d been summoned, and hurriedly stepped after him, trading a surprised look with Cala, who frowned thoughtfully, then gave him a cheerful wink.

He had overheard Cala and Kiru discussing in low voices what the etiquette was when Himself was engrossed in his romantic correspondence and, ah, practice, but they’d been tactful and quiet enough that he hadn’t actually overheard anything of substance. He didn’t know whether they would acknowledge it or politely ignore it or what. He had a feeling that barracks etiquette was probably not quite the thing, where the accepted choices were to ignore it, poke fun at it, or offer to join in.

A little jolt of confused horror and arousal shot through him at the very idea of offering to join in when the Emperor was-- he crushed it down firmly, and went and took his customary tour around the room, looking for anything amiss. There was a funny little mark on the ceiling, maybe a crack in the plaster, he kept meaning to ask someone about it but it always looked the same every time and he always forgot by morning. Maybe he’d remind himself to do another patrol in the morning and that would jog his memory.

He always checked the windows, too. They were many stories up, there was no feasible way to get to them, but it was still something to check, and in the summer they could be opened and Deret looked forward to having a lot of arguments about leaving them open all night or not. A nohecharis couldn’t really be expected to perform revethoran for letting his charge catch his death of the cold night airs but Deret was the type who likely would, he knew that about himself, so he was keen to prevent it.

All of the window locks worked correctly, and it took long enough to check each one by opening and closing it that by the time he turned around, Edrehasivar had already gone off to his bath, so there was no chance of him accidentally seeing the man unclothed. Which was good. He went and stood by the doorway to the bathing chamber, listening to the soft splashing and the discussion by the edocharei of whether Himself’s hair needed washing, and when they decided it didn’t, what hairstyle it should stay in for the night, and some discussion of tomorrow’s schedule and what clothing should be made ready. Himself didn’t contribute much, but he weighed in occasionally.

“You have put on a bit of muscle, Serenity,” Avris said. “Keep on this way and we’ll have to let the seams of your shirts out.”

“Mm, just in the shoulders, really,” Nemer said.

“No, trousers too,” Esha said. “The horseback riding, it’s building up your legs.”

“Well, not your waist, anyway,” Nemer said.

Deret thought disapprovingly of a horseback-riding instructor that wasn’t assigning calisthenics to increase the strength of the core of the rider’s body. The stability of the balance came from the muscles of the body, especially in the belly and the back, and their cooperation with the muscles of the legs, and if they were going to teach Himself properly how to jump a fence he was going to need strength in his center. It wouldn’t do; he’d have to interrogate the instructor at some point.

Eventually Edrehasivar came out, scented of lavender, sleepy-eyed, hair braided and nightshirt on. Deret let himself look at Himself’s shoulders, briefly, and admitted they were looking more substantial. Which would not be a difficult thing, as Himself had arrived looking more like he was sixteen than nearly nineteen, without an ounce of flesh to spare on any surface. Deret himself had filled out by eighteen, aided by spending all his leave time from the guard at his family’s home doing hard farm labor, and given a head start by an entire childhood and adolescence of the same hard farm labor. He did not miss hard farm labor, and consequently really didn’t miss having leave time ever.

The nightshirt had looser sleeve-cuffs than any other garment Himself wore, and so as he covered his mouth in a yawn, the scars on his left forearm were just visible, bright silver against the slate of his skin. Deret hated seeing them, and it struck him suddenly to wonder-- they all were so good at warning one another, in the household, about things like that, about keeping one another up to date, but had anyone explained to Csethero Ceredin what had happened to her husband and why she must never raise her voice or hand against him?

Grimly, Deret pondered that he was most likely to be voted enough of an asshole to be the one do it. Well, it was better that than rushing in and tackling the Empress to the ground when she grew ill-advisedly heated with her husband; Deret was absolutely enough of an asshole to do that but he’d rather not. He quite liked Dach’osmin Ceredin, even if she did seem perhaps too fond of tormenting him.

Himself pulled out the little lap desk-- no, it was a new one, there was a lockable storage compartment beneath-- and put it on the bed with his new letter for tonight. Deret went to his customary seat, and Himself said, a little hesitantly, “I’ll have the light on to read, for a little while; if thou wantst thou couldst leave thyself a light and read as well?”

Deret looked blankly at him. “Read what?” he asked, taken aback.

“Kiru usually reads a novel,” Edrehasivar said, gesturing, and there was in fact a little shelf with some blue- and yellow-backed books on it.

Deret was not really a recreational reader. Oh, he knew how, but he’d learned relatively late, and the idea of doing it for fun was somewhat foreign to him. Sometimes in the barracks somebody would read aloud to everybody else, so he knew what was normally in those novels-- well, in _some_ novels-- oh. Maybe these were-- that seemed scandalous.

He bent to investigate the shelf, warily; he’d only ever looked at it as an object before, checking on it and behind it and under it for any foreign intrusions. Were the books seditious? Could they contain anything harmful? Should he be checking them?

He turned out the lamps illuminating the room, except for the small one near the shelf; Himself had drawn the bedcurtains and was rustling paper in there. Well, he’d found something to occupy himself, at least.

Deret sat on the floor next to the shelf and pulled each book out in turn, stacked them all on the floor, and felt along the shelves carefully, investigating to see if there was any possible way anything could be hidden. He turned up a slip of paper, but it was just a strip that had clearly been torn to act as a bookmark. There was a little dust, too, but he could feel that the bookshelf was sturdily constructed and there were no hidden hollows. He even moved it slightly and checked the wall, to see if it was hiding anything, but it wasn’t.

A voice startled him. “Art thou-- what art thou doing?”

Himself was poking his head out of the curtains. Deret looked up guiltily. “Oh,” he said, “I--” He hastily pushed the bookshelf back, feeling like he’d been caught doing something illicit. “I realized I never check this.”

“You all have such different ideas of how to check the room,” Edrehasivar said. “Did you know, you each sit in a different spot?”

Deret pondered that. “But that’s the only place where one can see the whole room, Serenity,” he said, puzzled.

“Yes,” Himself said, amused. “But Telimezh likes the window casement, and Kiru sits in the far corner, and Cala-- well, he sits in all different places.”

“He does that in the b-- our quarters, too,” Deret said. He’d almost said _barracks_. “Sits on the floor sometimes. I can’t imagine why, we have plenty of furniture.” He sat back down and started putting the books back onto the shelf, trying to put them back in the order they’d been in, but he couldn’t remember exactly.

Edrehasivar was watching him. “Sorry I made so much noise,” Deret said sheepishly. “I thought it would not bother you.”

“Oh, no,” he said, “it’s not that it bothered me, I just wondered what thou wert doing.”

Deret put the last book on the shelf and went and sat in his normal seat, self-conscious. Himself watched him, considering, and he remembered suddenly he was supposed to have been choosing a book to read, not rearranging the furniture, so he stood and went back over and pulled a book from the shelf at random, and went back to sit near the lamp. That was enough to convince Edrehasivar to go back to his own reading, apparently, and Deret sighed inwardly and held the book in his lap, not looking at it.

After a few moments more, Edrehasivar flicked the curtains open and looked out at him again. “I hate to bother thee,” he said.

Deret looked up from the book, which he belatedly noticed was upside-down, though fortunately as it was in his lap that wasn’t visible across the room. “Serenity, my entire purpose is to be bothered,” he said, which at least got a laugh.

“I don’t understand this cipher,” he said, and Deret gratefully put the book down and went over.

He stood awkwardly bent over to look at the letter for a few moments, until Himself patted the bed. “You might as well sit down.”

Deret regarded the enormous bed dubiously-- the bedclothes were absolutely pure white, finer fabric than he’d ever touched, and he felt distinctly unworthy of touching the surface, let alone plunking his hindquarters down on it, but there was no help for it. He sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed, and contemplated the ciphered letter and the key.

The keys were the ones he had created, and they’d been labeled with a series of serial letter-number combinations, so that within the body of the letter they could be referred to, and each party in the correspondence could refer to their master sheet of cipher keys. Which was operationally not the most secure thing, but Deret supposed he had to give up somewhere, and that was a good place to give up.

“She made a mistake,” Deret said finally, “this must be encoded with C9. By the way, another point of security-- she begins every letter with your name, and so that should be M-A-I-A, and it is if you use C9, and isn’t if you use any others. She called out D9 but it’s clearly C9. She needs to switch up the salutation, to be secure, but if she doesn’t it is a handy way to double-check the key.”

Edrehasivar laughed. “I hadn’t noticed that, to be sure,” he said. “I do the same, in my letters back to her.”

“What, start them with your name?” Deret said. That got him another laugh, which was what he’d wanted. “Ah, Serenity-- you likely need not always adhere to the most strict protocols for your personal correspondence, but it’s well to keep them in mind. I tell you these things not to ruin your enjoyment but to remind you that there is danger in everything, and to prepare for it is better than to be surprised.”

“I know this about thee, Beshelar,” Edrehasivar said, “and I appreciate it.”

Deret allowed himself a small smile. “Not everyone appreciates that about me,” he admitted. He had been half-hoping to win another laugh, but Himself sat up and looked over at him thoughtfully.

“I had been wondering,” he said, “what thou didst leave behind to take this job.”

Deret shook his head slowly. “It was no question of leaving behind,” he said. “I was not unsatisfied in my position within the Guard, but I would have had an unexceptional career there. This was a chance to-- to do something really important. I am not-- ambitious, Serenity, but I wanted-- it’s the pinnacle of our training, to do this, and to do something bigger than just myself--” He trailed off.

“What if I had proved to be a terrible person?” Edrehasivar asked.

Deret shook his head again. “Who you are personally does not matter to me professionally,” he said, and then hesitated, because that sounded terrible. “That is-- but--”

“I understand,” Himself said, smiling. “Your job is not to be my friend.”

“Well,” Deret said, and faltered. “Well. It isn’t.”

“I had not thought,” Himself said, “but that thou must give up thy family, for this job.”

“Giving up my family is no particular hardship,” Deret said. “Farmers, all, and all they want of me is a strong back. I sent home enough of my pay that my brother owns the land outright now, they need no more of me and I do not miss them.”

“But never to take a wife,” Himself mused.

Deret shook his head. “Truth, I have no dynasty to preserve, no property of my own, there’s no requirement for me to carry on a name. I’m provided for here. An I survive to retire, I’ll be taken care of then, so there’s no need for children to carry me through my twilight years.”

“And celibacy?” Himself asked, blushing a little, and Deret, too late, understood the line of questioning. He had not stopped to consider what Himself could possibly really want to know.

“Oh,” Deret said, remembering that Himself had grown up in a very isolated estate with no particular insights into how much of the world worked. “Well. Ah.” He was blushing too, now.

“Thou needst not answer,” Edrehasivar said hastily, “I pry too much.”

“No, no,” Deret said, “I,” _stupid, thou shouldst have taken that escape_. But he considered that, and his own impulse to answer, and realized he felt… nothing so much as protective, of this young man, knowing he had no one else to ask about this. “Well it’s, ah. Being unmarried does not necessarily mean one must be… utterly chaste… and if one has fairly modest needs… that is…”

He envied Kiru, in that moment, who could have answered simply and honestly and without shame. He wondered how Telimezh had answered this question. For that matter, how had Cala? Or was he truly the first one Edrehasivar was asking? What that said about him, he could not begin to guess.

“I don’t think I follow,” Edrehasivar said thoughtfully.

“Did your manual not cover this?” Deret asked, face burning.

“Didst hear about the manual?” Edrehasivar laughed, a bit nervously perhaps, and retrieved a sheaf of papers from the lap desk compartment. To Deret’s horror, there were-- indeed there were anatomical drawings. He averted his eyes hastily. “There is indeed a section on, ah, how to avoid unintended pregnancies, alongside the section on how to cause intended ones, but there is no explanation of what the social norms are for the unmarried.” He was deeply embarrassed now, but persisting, so he had to genuinely want to know, Deret thought.

Well, the boy had no older brothers, had no parental figures he could trust, had never known any aunts or uncles. Suddenly, Deret wanted to hug him, and he summoned his courage. “Shall I speak to thee just as a person, for a moment, like I would to a brother, and not as your Serenity?”

The gamble paid off; Edrehasivar looked up, something keen and almost hungry in his face. “Yes,” he breathed. “As-- Maia, talk to me as just Maia for a moment.”

“A moment only,” Deret said. “Thou understandest.”

“I do,” Maia said.

Deret let himself look at the anatomical drawings. There was a lot more detail than he’d ever seen before. He didn’t really know how women’s parts all really went together, honestly, and it looked fascinating but that wasn’t the point here. Ah, as Kiru had indicated, there was in fact a section on masturbation; Deret wasn’t a fast reader so the captions were opaque to him without a moment he didn’t want to take to puzzle through them, but there was an unambiguous, quite detailed drawing of a man with his hand on his prick that left no doubt as to what was going on. Deret had to pause for a moment, to collect himself. “For a lot of… soldiers,” he said. “And couriers, and-- a lot of us in that, ah, caste of people, I suppose.” He paused again, considering. “Mostly boys and young men, without any particular status, with jobs that keep us fairly constrained in terms of free time and location. It’s not possible to marry, at that stage. There’s nothing to offer a wife, and nowhere to put her if we got one, and no time to see her even if we had the means and the place. Mayhap we get a promotion, in time, a posting where we’re granted more of a living allowance-- then, perhaps, we’d marry.”

“Captain Orthema’s wife is much younger than he is,” Maia observed.

Deret nodded. “It took that long for him to rise high enough that he could afford a wife, and have time for her,” he said.

“So what dost thou do in the meantime?” Maia asked. But then a look of consternation crossed his face, and then he bit off whatever he was going to say.

Deret could imagine what it was, though. “For some,” he said, “prostitutes, aye.” He shook his head. “But that’s not-- I wouldn’t. I don’t. I like not the idea of someone with no other choices. They say some of them do it for fun but I couldn’t-- how could one know, for sure?”

Maia nodded solemnly. “Then what?” he asked.

Deret steeled himself. “You,” he said, using the plural, “take care of one another.”

Maia’s mouth opened slightly as he thought that over. “What, just-- all the young soldiers lie with one another?”

“Not,” Deret said, “well, some, probably.” His face might catch fire. “But. If your needs are modest. It’s different, with different people. But it’s. In the barracks, sometimes. Thou canst just…” He ran out of words, feeling himself blushing fiercely, and instead reached over and tapped the diagram showing the hand on the prick, in the section about relieving oneself. “Findst thou a friend thou canst trust, and… help one another.”

“Oh,” Maia said faintly.

“Some take it farther than that,” Deret said, “and there are all manner of things they can get up to.” He couldn’t help it; he added, keeping his voice light, “I daresay you could ask Aisava.”

Maia looked up, gaze sharpening. “Really,” he said.

“Oh,” Deret said, “I’m not-- gossipping.” He was ashamed of himself, after all, it turned out. “Couriers have more freedom, it’s said. And-- They were all full of teasing him about some rumor, the other day, but I know not what the rumor really was, I shouldn’t have--”

“We’re pretending I’m just Maia at the moment,” Maia pointed out, “so it doesn’t matter.”

“Still,” Deret said. “It was an unworthy sentiment. An I were really just thy older brother or something, still it would behoove me to behave better than that to thee, as an example.”

“Only thou,” Maia said fondly. Deret gave him a look, and Maia elaborated, “Only thou couldst chastise thyself for a completely fictional circumstance, and mean it.”

Deret drew him up as if for an offended response, but couldn’t think of anything to say, so he deflated instead. “Well,” he said. “If one can’t adhere to one’s principles in a hypothetical, then how does one expect to adhere to them in the practical?”

“A fair point,” Maia conceded. “So thou just-- art thou a virgin?” he asked suddenly, as if it had only just occurred to him.

Deret grimaced. “That,” he said, “depends on what thou meanest by that.”

“Hast thou ever had a woman?” Maia asked.

Deret bit his lips. “No,” he said finally. Then, “Wait, art thou saying a man can’t take another man’s virginity?”

“Well,” Maia said, “it wouldn’t be the same.” He thought it over. “But surely…”

“I am no solicitor,” Deret said, “to draw ever-finer lines and decide which ones count for what. Nor am I a cleric, to be chaste. I’ll not split hairs over virginity with thee, Maia. The thing I feel thou shouldst know about this manner of… conduct among…” He hesitated. “My social caste. Is that it’s something done among equals. One does it with one’s cohort of equal rank or similar age, the way that one can be sure nobody’s forced into anything, and also that nobody’s going to blackmail anybody else either way about it.”

Maia considered that. “So thou couldst… with Csevet?”

For some reason that was suddenly appealing. Deret thought about it, forcing himself to consider the logistics rather than the fact that Aisava was a lithe, pert specimen of elfhood. “Properly,” he said, “perhaps.” A nohecharis had a strange social context, but so did the Emperor’s personal secretary. It was likely, yes, that they could consider themselves social peers, on some level.

“But couldst not with me,” Maia finished, and Deret had to focus very hard for a moment, because it hit him with great force that he was sitting on a lovely youth’s bed with a book of anatomical drawings of sexual intercourse.

“No,” Deret said finally, “neither in reality nor in this fictional situation. In reality, thou’rt too far above me. And in this fictional situation, thou’rt too young for me.”

“How old art thou?” Maia demanded.

“Old enough,” Deret said, “that wert thou a new recruit my rank would be too much higher than thine, and wert thou my little brother as I had been mentally picturing to get me through this, t’would be incest, which is an abomination, so in any case it would be incorrect.”

Maia laughed, at that. “Thou hast a very specific imagination,” he said.

“If one is to adhere to one’s principles in a hypothetical,” Deret said, “one had better be damned sure of all the details of that hypothetical.”

Maia laughed again. “Only thou,” he said again. And then he said, “Well, what of all the young women left out by this?”

“What?” Deret squinted at him, trying to make out his meaning.

“Well,” Maia said, “all these young men pent up together with no hope of marriage-- the population is half women, so that must mean there is an equal number of young women pent up without prospects.”

“They marry older men,” Deret said.

“Oh,” Maia said, deflating. Clearly, he had been thinking about dormitories full of young ladies with nothing to do but each other.

“I, there are surely novels about such things,” Deret said, “with which thou couldst entertain thyself, but I think in real life that’s the true answer, they’re all getting married off to older men.” That was the sort of thing they’d read aloud in the barracks, sometimes. It wasn’t exactly to Deret’s tastes, but then, it wasn’t _not_ , either. He didn’t have very well-defined tastes, so far. He had never really allowed himself to spend too much time thinking about it.

“I suppose thou’rt right,” Maia said.

Deret nodded, and gathered himself. “I should,” he began.

Maia curled in on himself, like in the bad old days when he’d first arrived, closing up and shutting down. “Of course,” he said quietly.

“No, no,” Deret said, “Maia-- if thou needest more answers--”

“I know not what questions to ask,” Maia said. “This is all more than I know how to handle, and while that’s been the case since I got here, this is so intimate--” He shuffled through the packet of papers, and there were some ciphered letters at the end, with the laboriously worked-out solutions on spare sheets next to them. “I want privacy to deal with it, and I’ve been given that, and it turns out that I don’t understand, on my own, what to do, and I don’t know what to ask.”

Deret made himself look at the letters, scanning over the solutions to read random sentences. One of them said, “-- glad you have been practicing for me, but i have been too afraid to try very much, i will need you to show me what you have learned.” Another, partially in Deret’s own handwriting, said, “I was particularly intrigued by figure 4 on page 5, because I read a novel where they did that and it worked a great effect on the heroine.”

Deret looked up at Maia, whose great gray eyes were wide with worry, and thought about how pretty the boy was, and how young, and how terrible his innocence really was, and sighed, quietly.

“I have no advice to give thee, here,” he said. “We’ve just discussed at length how little experience I truly have. But I can tell thee, thou wilt be as fine as it’s possible to be. She’s a rare clever one, and seems delighted enough to match thy kindness. It’s a better start to a marriage than most any.”

“Thinkst thou so?” Maia asked.

Deret looked at him, all youth and hope, a glimmering shadow in his white sheets. _I don’t know anything,_ he thought. “I know so,” he said, kind and firm. “And now, Serenity, you need to go to sleep.” He gently drew back, pulling propriety around himself, and Edrehasivar tilted his chin up and nodded, looking determined.

  
  


In the quiet still of the depths of the night, hours before dawn yet but hours after all were asleep, Cala’s pleasant drowsy meditation on nothing was interrupted by the soft click of the bedchamber door. Beshelar was coming out, and he started up, to go and check in.

“All’s well,” Beshelar said, “just,” and he gestured in the direction of the latrine.

“Should we trade?” Cala asked.

Beshelar shrugged. “If thou wantst,” he said.

Cala leaned in to murmur, “How’d it go? What was in his letter, tonight?”

Beshelar gave him a frosty look, forbidding, and Cala laughed silently. “Was it horribly awkward?”

“No,” Beshelar said, relenting, “he just wanted to talk.”

“Talk,” Cala said, surprised. “To thee?”

Beshelar’s look turned dark. “Yes, to me,” he said. “I’m not a statue, thou know’st.”

“No, I know,” Cala said. “I just wouldn’t have thought of thee as… approachable.”

Beshelar glared, and Cala threw his hands up defensively. “Thou’rt not exactly a font of emotion!” he said.

“Apparently,” Beshelar said, “I do just fine.” And he turned and stalked away. Cala rolled his eyes, and let himself into the bedchamber to take his place silently in the window casement.


	6. Misunderstanding

 

Deret flinched violently as Csevet stepped out into his path in the hallway. “What didst thou tell his Serenity about me?” the secretary demanded.

Deret shoved his knife back in the sheath. “Gods’ sake, don’t _startle_ me so,” he said. It wasn’t the sort of thing people normally had to be cautioned about, leaping out at nohecharei like the world was ending, even off-duty ones.

Aisava advanced on him, and Deret realized suddenly that the man was _lividly_ furious, ears flat and teeth bared. “What didst thou _tell him_?”

Hastily Deret put his hands up to fend the man off if he attacked, which was suddenly looking likely. “What did I tell him? I know not, Aisava, what did he tell thee I told him?”

Aisava laughed bitterly, and leaned in, lowering his voice to a frightening, hissing intensity. “He asked me, Lieutenant Beshelar, about young unmarried men keeping one another’s company, and whether they ever had emotional as well as physical attachments, and when I demurred he told me that you had informed him I would be a good person to ask such a question!”

Beshelar stared at him in horror. That was-- absolutely not what he had meant, and not at all what he had thought Himself would take away from the conversation.

“Don’t make that face!” Aisava hissed, nigh incandescent with rage. “Don’t look down thy nose at me!”

Desperate, Beshelar said, “That’s not what I told him!”

“Art thou calling him a liar?” Csevet asked, and Deret had a moment to remember two things: one, that couriers dueled almost as often as young officers, and fought much more often with no superiors to intervene-- often, to the death-- and two, that nohecharei were forbidden dueling, and even brawling would be grounds for heavy censure.

“No,” Deret said, “but I--” He saw it coming and managed to roll with it when Csevet hit him, and he ducked low, came up under the next swing, and shoved his shoulder into Csevet’s chest, and using that leverage slammed Csevet’s back into the wall, rather forcefully. It didn’t really stop Aisava, but it slowed him down enough to give Deret a moment to hiss into his ear, “If thou’lt but _control thyself_ I’ll gladly explain this to thee in private but if thou mak’st a public spectacle of us it will reflect poorly on Himself and I will have to _kill thee and myself_.”

No one was in the hallway, right this moment, but it was far from deserted, and someone would see them brawling in a matter of moments; it was the nightly shift change and the kitchen staff was in the midst of their evening dismissal as well.

That took the fight out of Aisava, who sagged in Deret’s grip. Deret held him a moment longer, knowing the man was strong and wily and probably had a lot of experience at brawling. “Thou’ld’st not kill thyself over me,” Csevet choked out, with a bitter laugh.

“An I murdered the Emperor’s personal secretary,” Deret said, rough and low in Csevet’s ear, “I would not count on being granted permission for revethoran.” He let go and backed away, dancing back immediately out of reach in case Csevet tried to hit him again.

“Well?” Csevet asked, chest heaving for breath. Deret had knocked the wind from him. Good.

“I said _in private_ ,” Deret said, and sure enough, Ishean the dining server came scuttling down the hall, paused to look warily between the two of them, and then continued on her way.

“In private, so thou hast a chance to assassinate my person as well as my character?” Csevet said, still breathing too hard to get it all out in one go.

That didn’t dignify a response; if Deret wanted Csevet dead, he would already be dead. Deret just glared at him, and finally Csevet said, “This way,” and turned down the hallway.

Inwardly, Deret prepared himself to be murdered. It would be best, he thought, not to give resistance, and just let it happen. But then he thought of the inevitable scandal. It would probably be inferred, he realized with horror, that he himself was having a doomed affair with Aisava that had somehow gone wrong, and the scandal of it would be far worse for Himself than if he just killed Aisava. No one would believe a nohecharis had gone down in a fair fight with a secretary, because already nobody remembered that Aisava had come up as a courier, and the rough-and-tumble life of couriers was the sort of thing people only remembered in novels and didn’t really appreciate in real life.

He followed Aisava, who was still fuming so furiously that it was almost possible to see his temper boiling from his head in black clouds, into a well-appointed little set of rooms that it took him a moment to realize must be Aisava’s own. He closed the door behind himself, and Aisava wheeled around, dead-white with anger. “Well?”

“I have been trying to think of a way thou mightst kill me without the scandal reflecting on Himself and cannot devise it,” Deret said.

“Don’t _mock_ me,” Csevet shouted, but restrained himself enough not to physically assault Deret again. “What didst thou tell him of me!”

“Not,” Deret said desperately, “what thou thinkst! Not what-- he was asking me questions, I only answered them!”

“Then how,” Csevet asked, gesturing widely, almost pleadingly, “how came he, to be asking _me_ , of such matters?”

Almost he looked broken, and belatedly Deret thought that there must be something much deeper here than the typical dalliances for which couriers were so famous in reputation. _What hast thou done?_ he asked himself.

Deret breathed in and out slowly, and sat down on the trim little settee near the middle of the small anteroom. “He was,” he began quietly. “He wanted to know.” He had to consider it a moment, and chewed on his lips. Csevet came and sat down on the edge of the chair facing the settee, staring unrelentingly. “I was talking about-- _myself_ , Aisava, he wanted to know-- personal things about me, and--” He let his breath out. “So I told him. I told him what we do, when we’re young soldiers, or couriers, or the like, without any prospects, without any property, without much time to ourselves. How we--” He gestured, vaguely, a hand, palm upward, meaningless but beseeching. “Sometimes take-- physical comfort from-- one another.”

“We see,” Csevet said, icy.

“It was offered in a spirit of-- thou knowest him!” Deret gestured emphatically. “Thou know’st what he’s like! All-- gentle, and downcast, and timid, and doesn’t dare ask for aught, and--” He broke off, regrouped, and burst out, “And there’s been nobody who cared about him to tell him how the world works!”

That, he was grimly satisfied to see, struck home, at least momentarily. Csevet grimaced, and sat back in the chair with a strange gesture that was almost a writhe, as if this pained him.

In a moment, Csevet let his breath out, and said, “And thou toldst him I was the perfect person to ask for more detail on this topic,” somewhat bleakly.

“In the Guard we have little free time and less privacy,” Deret said bluntly. “There’s neither time nor opportunity for more than a cursory exchange of-- of favors, but the wild things couriers get up to are the stuff of romantic tales. Whether there’s truth to it or no, at least thou’dst have heard the tales. That was all I meant by it, that thou mightst have had opportunity to know more of it.”

“That’s not true,” Csevet said, and Deret gave him a look. “About the Guard. Why, the things I’ve _witnessed_ thy fellows getting up to--”

Deret felt his face get hot. “Well,” he said, and was confronted then with the truth, that he’d only really half-understood before this new perspective of his. “Well, Aisava, I’m an asshole and nobody likes me, so all _I_ ever had opportunity for were cursory exchanges of favors.” He gestured again, more purposefully this time. “Now thou hast first-hand knowledge of why nobody likes me, beyond all the other first-hand knowledge thou already hadst. I am sorry, and I meant nothing specific by it, and even as I said it I thought it was probably a bad suggestion and begged him to disregard it, and he clearly did not and now I know better than to take that sort of pity on him--”

“Stop, stop,” Csevet said tiredly, waving at him, “stop. I understand. I’m not angry with thee anymore. I thought-- I thought thou toldst him-- something else.” He rubbed his face, and then pressed his hand to the middle of his chest where Deret had hit him. From his posture, he was bruised, and would be sore, and Deret was sorry for it. Csevet’s fist had hit his cheekbone only a glancing blow, and him already moving with it, so it wasn’t likely to leave a mark anyone could see.

“I know not aught else to tell him,” Deret offered lamely. “There’s a reason I was-- not in the Intelligence branch, Aisava. An there were aught else of thee to relate--”

“Thou wert flirting with me, the other day,” Csevet said. “Why wouldst thou mock my reputation if you knew naught of it?”

Deret blinked, and then recalled-- “Csevet, Nemer was mocking _me_ ,” he said. “It is a source of unending amusement to him to speculate about everyone’s sex lives, especially my total lack thereof, and--” Deret trailed off. “Was he talking about… aught that was _true_?”

Csevet slumped gingerly in his chair. “Echelo had been teasing me because she knew I’d been… had someone in my room, here.”

“Someone,” Deret said cautiously, not sure he understood.

“Azhalet,” Csevet said. That was the courier who came by sometimes, with the black hair, handsome dark fellow.

“Oh,” Deret said. Then, “Ah, thou meanst-- like an ongoing--”

“It’s not exactly serious,” Csevet said, “or exclusive, but. Yes. I do… generally tend to... “

“Himself doesn’t care about that, though,” Deret said. “He’d not-- dismiss you for it, or anything of the sort.”

“No,” Csevet said, and sighed. “I should not have been so upset with thee.” He was still oddly tense, though, looking off to one side.

It wasn’t the question of sexual relationships between men that had so upset Csevet, though. It was the question of _emotional_ relationships. So, clearly, it was something else he was upset about, not that Deret might have tattled to the Emperor that he was habitually of a particular persuasion.

“Why _wert_ thou so upset with me?” Deret asked, puzzled. “Thou knowest better than I that Himself has no particular objection to-- and anyway I’d begun the entire tale by telling on _myself_ about it, if he were going to be upset it would have been with me, surely?”

“It was overreaction,” Csevet said.

Deret was not the fastest at drawing conclusions, he knew that; he was no great solver of puzzles except by methodical application, not prone to flashes of insight, rarely the first to laugh at a joke. But he did normally arrive, eventually; he was decent at ciphers because of the methodical application part. Csevet had been in an unreasoning, trembling rage at Deret because Edrehasivar had asked him if men could romantically love one another. There was a connection there that was crucial, and it was the connection of emotion and…

“Thou lov’st him,” Deret said quietly, as it finally connected for him.

Csevet shot to his feet, and Deret in pure reflex rolled himself over the back of the settee, landing on his feet and crouching there for shelter. He craned his neck to look around the edge of the chair, and Csevet had possibly been intending to attack him but now was just standing there with his arms wrapped around his chest and his face scrunched up as though he were injured. “Don’t,” Csevet said brokenly, “don’t--” but he didn’t have an end for the sentence, plainly.

Deret cautiously climbed to his feet, keeping the settee between them. “Csevet,” he said quietly.

“I’d never _tell_ him,” Csevet said, as if the words were being forcibly wrung out of him. “I couldn’t understand how thou couldst _know_ , how thou hadst guessed--” He turned away, a tiny shuffling step, like a man mortally wounded in the body.

“I didn’t,” Deret said, horrified.

“I understand that, now,” Csevet said, quiet and defeated. At some point he’d lost one of his tashin sticks, and his hair was starting to come down. It was the first time Deret had ever really seen him anything other than flawless and poised.

It was clear there was no further physical threat. Deret came out from behind the settee, and walked up to Csevet, carefully unthreatening. “I won’t tell him,” he said softly. “I would never have, even jokingly, made any kind of reference-- I didn’t know.”

“I know,” Csevet said, after a moment. He managed a ghost of a smile. “Thou’rt an asshole, but not on purpose.”

Deret laughed despite himself. “Ouch,” he said. “Thou’st summed up the entire totality of me in a single sentence.”

Csevet shook his head slightly, still looking like a dying man, and Deret frowned. “Let me look at thy ribs,” he said. “I think I hit thee too hard.”

“Thou didst use a great deal of force,” Csevet admitted.

“I was worried thou wouldst kill me,” Deret said absently. “I mean it, let me look at thy ribs.”

“As if I could seriously threaten thee,” Csevet scoffed, but he hesitantly unfolded his arms from around himself, and began to unbutton his jacket. “Thou’rt twice my size, Deret.”

Deret shook his head. “I learned never to underestimate couriers,” he said. “You lot get in a lot of brawls. I half-expected thee to pull out a knife.”

“I have _some_ sense,” Csevet said.

“Thou didst take a swing at my face,” Deret said, “not half a minute after I pulled a knife on thee just for startling me.”

A flash of amusement crossed Csevet’s face, at that. “I thought I connected,” he said.

“Thou didst,” Deret said, “but recollect, I’m an asshole, so I’ve a fair amount of practice at getting punched in the face.”

“Is that why thy reflexes are so quick?” Csevet asked. Deret helped him take his jacket off; it was hard for him to pull his shoulders back. He would be bruised mostly on his back, Deret thought.

“Partly,” Deret said, draping the jacket carefully over the end of the settee. “I admit a large portion of my training for nohecharis consisted of getting punched in my personal free time.” Csevet made quick work of the buttons on his shirt, and Deret helped pull it off him, pausing to work on the buttons at the cuffs.

“I’m not twice thy size,” Deret grumbled after a moment, mostly to ease the silence.

“Half again,” Csevet said. Deret had a half a hand of height on him, but neither of them were stocky.

“You know the uniform jerkins are padded,” Deret said. Metal armor wasn’t in fashion except for certain battlefield positions, but tightly-stuffed padding on jackets was a lightweight, silent, much more comfortable substitute and was worn by the Untheliense Guard in all but the most very highest ranks’ formal uniforms. Nohecharei wore the normal Guard uniforms, under their baldrics, and so far it was pleasant but Deret wasn’t looking forward to summer. It got stuffy in these halls. Padding was a normal element in fashionable jackets as well, but not quite so much of it, nor so densely packed-- the jacket he’d just removed from Csevet had quilted ridges to give the shoulders their fashionable shape. Though they followed the line of the young man’s actual shoulders, they did exaggerate his figure somewhat. Deret’s jerkin was padded for practicality more than fashion, and the quilting extended down to the hem of the jacket and into his forearms. He was glad of it, however over-warm it was likely to be in summer; were it not for the padding, Tethimar’s knife would have done a great deal more damage. The man had known what he was doing with a knife; undeflected, that stroke would have opened arteries.

“Thou meanst,” Csevet said, “that’s not all thee?” He reached out and poked Beshelar’s shoulder.

“My flesh doesn’t actually have ridges,” Deret said.

“How had I never noticed this?” Csevet mused, prodding at him with his fingertips.

“In the stage play of the Emperor’s life, I am scenery,” Beshelar said. “But Telimezh is the one who’s twice thy size, in truth.”

Csevet was down to his last layer, a short-sleeved shirt of thin linen with flat thread buttons holding it closed. It was clearer now that it hurt him to move his arms, and Deret had a suspicion that he might be worse than bruised. He moved behind him to pull the shirt down from his shoulders, and Csevet hissed as he tried to pull his shoulders back to get the shirt off.

“It’s thy shoulder blades,” Deret said. “One must be cracked. Which side hurts worse?” He gently pulled the shirt away, exposing the white skin of Csevet’s shoulders, and set the shirt down, putting his palm gently against the middle of the other man’s back, over his spine.

“I can’t tell,” Csevet said tightly. Deret moved his fingers gently, probing delicately; Csevet was all lean muscle, not yet faded to softness by the relatively idle life of an administrator. The left shoulder blade seemed intact, if a bit bruised, but when Deret moved his thumb over to the right side he was immediately rewarded with a flinch and a yelp.

“Right, then,” he said. “Most inconvenient. I am sorry, Aisava.”

“I need to write,” Csevet said, distressed.

“I can bandage it for thee, for tonight,” Deret said, “and in the morning when Kiru comes off her shift she can look at it, but there’s not likely much to be done, it just needs to heal.”

“I’ve cracked ribs before,” Csevet said, dubiously, “I know how to work through that.”

“This is similar,” Deret said. “Nothing to be done, but keep it still. No carrying weights. Thou canst probably still write, if we can but devise a sling that will allow it. I should check thy collarbones, if I hit thee so hard there might be other damage.”

“I think there is not,” Csevet said. But Deret checked them anyway, running his thumbs along their delicate curves, then following the lines of the other bones of the shoulders, noting where they disappeared under muscles or ligaments, seeing that all were in their correct place.

He checked Csevet’s ribs, too, and the secretary stood and let him, though he was beginning to come up in goose-flesh at the cold. They were intact as well, fortunately. “So, just the shoulder blade, then.”

“Yes, I suppose I’m fortunate,” Csevet said.

“Let’s get thee dressed for bed,” Deret said, “and I’ll bind it well so thou canst sleep, and in the morning I’ll send Kiru to thee directly. Don’t dress before she comes, let her see to thee and she’ll bind it over your clothes once thou'rt dressed. Thou’lt have trouble dressing thyself, for a few days, I expect. And we’ll have to find someone to carry thy papers, should'st not bear weight on either arm until it’s well set. I can speak to Esaran in the morning and see if she knows any likely boys who could do the job for a couple of weeks at least.”

Csevet nodded, and went into his bedroom. He was beginning to shiver, and was clearly in pain. Deret followed him in-- his bedroom was small but comfortably furnished, with a comfortable-looking double bed and an excess of bedding, and an ornate lap desk that seemed to live on the nightstand. He refrained from comment, and pulled Csevet’s nightshirt over his head for him, then used the length of bandage Csevet provided to strap his right arm into position. “I already had this from last time I had to wrap my ribs,” Csevet explained briefly.

“Fortunate,” Deret said. He considered another moment, then said, “Sit down,” and knelt in front of Csevet to pull off his boots. “Canst unfasten thy trousers one-handed?”

Csevet looked briefly horrified, then resigned. “No,” he said, and stood up so Deret could unfasten them for him. He was blushless as the snow, but Deret could feel his own ears going pink, as they hadn’t at all the earlier intimacies. Unfastening a man’s trousers was something else entirely, no matter how innocent the reason; it was difficult to do, reversed as the motion was from the habit of doing one’s own, and he felt himself clumsy and fumbling against the soft skin of Csevet’s waist, far too aware of everything and self-conscious about it.

Csevet at least could wriggle out of his trousers himself, once assisted, and did so, folding them awkwardly one-handed. “Thank’ee,” he said quietly, subdued. Then he looked up at Deret, face grim. “What do we tell Himself?”

 _The truth,_ Deret almost said, but then thought about it for a moment. “I have no gift of glibness,” he admitted. “I know not how to--” He shook his head.

“Then it has to be the truth,” Csevet said. “I know not how to explain it.” He had gone dead white again, and he sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Thou couldst just say it was a bad fall,” Deret said, knowing that was craven of him-- he was a lousy liar, but Csevet surely had some gift of it, and if they could just leave Deret out of it--

“I suppose if thy name doesn’t come up then thou hast no need of lying,” Csevet said, mouth twisting wryly.

Deret shook his head. “I like it not,” he said. “Listen, the truth doesn’t mean revealing any secrets. It’s simple; thou wert angry with me over a misunderstanding, and I hit thee too hard trying to stop the fight, we are both sorry for it, and we’ve cleared up the misunderstanding. There need be no more detail shared than that.”

Csevet sighed, gingerly; breathing was clearly painful, and Deret winced to see it. “I suppose,” he said. “Thou know’st that won’t be enough to satisfy Himself.”

“No,” Deret admitted. “But it’s a beginning.” He set his jaw. “I’ll not tell Himself about-- thee, no matter what. For his own good, he shouldn’t know.”

Csevet’s brow pinched fleetingly, and he looked down. “Thou’rt right,” he said.

Deret considered his downcast face for a moment, and thought about why that should have been so uniquely painful to Csevet, and did some mental calculations. “Csevet,” he said softly. Csevet raised his chin a little, but kept his eyes turned away, resolute. “Csevet, I don’t judge thee,” he said, nearly whispering. “I’m half in love with him myself.” He hadn’t really understood it, or admitted it to himself, but it was true.

Csevet blushed delicately, and did not look up, but said, finally, barely on a breath, “I thank thee, Deret.”

  
  


Cala woke alone, the scullery made tapping at his door in confusion. Beshelar’s room was empty, his bed cold and made so neatly it was impossible to tell if he’d ever been in it. He hadn’t been back yet when Cala had gone to sleep. His gear wasn’t there, but he might have dressed and left already; the man was so tidy it was impossible to tell whether anything had been disturbed. Someday, perhaps, Deret would adjust to living in private quarters and not in the barracks, but Cala had a feeling it would be a long time. Deret was not a simple or stupid man, but he tended toward habit, strongly.

Which made it all the more perplexing that he had come back so late, or not at all, and left so early, or whatever it was that he’d done.

Cala washed and dressed and replaited his hair, and went along to the kitchen to find breakfast. They reported there that Beshelar had indeed come and eaten, but they were unable to answer Cala’s question of whether he’d been on his way in or out.

Ishean had a strange expression as they discussed it, so Cala buttonholed her as he left, and she professed ignorance, but admitted that she’d seen Beshelar having a very intense conversation in the hallway with Mer Aisava the previous night. She had almost thought they might be arguing, and the idea of it had frightened her so she’d left quickly. No one else had anything of the sort to report, however.

This was very curious indeed. He went along to the main rooms of the apartment, and in the anteroom to the Emperor’s bedchamber found Telimezh, who lit up on seeing him. “Good, you’re here,” he said. “Beshelar came in and asked Kiru to come with him somewhere, and said you’d be along momentarily, but we’re glad to see you. This is somewhat irregular.”

Their shift wasn’t meant to start for a few moments yet, and Cala was only early because he was looking for Beshelar. “It would have been good for him to communicate this to _us_ ,” Cala said, a little disgruntled. “Is Himself awake yet?”

Telimezh shook his head. “He seems to have slept in a bit,” he said. “Kiru was in there, so we had to go get her, and he wasn’t stirring yet but we did take a quick peek and he seems to be sleeping normally. The edocharei will be in shortly, we imagine, but there’s also been no sign of Aisava, who is usually champing at the bit to begin the day’s agenda, so possibly it’s just a light day and everyone’s resting.”

Cala shook his head. “We never know anything,” he said.

“Neither do we,” Telimezh said ruefully. “I was about to go back in, do you want to go in instead?”

“It matters not to me,” Cala said. “Where did Beshelar take Kiru?”

Telimezh shook his head. “He was very grim and mysterious,” he said.

“We might wait out here for him, then,” Cala said, frowning. “We like this not, Telimezh, it is unusual.” _What art thou doing, Beshelar?_

He did not have to wait long. He recognized Beshelar’s footfalls as he came in from the back hallway, and thought about composing his expression, but didn’t, and so he was glowering with his arms crossed over his chest as Beshelar came in.

“Couldst have woken me,” he said.

Beshelar made an expression Cala couldn’t read, and came up to him to speak quietly. “There was a problem,” he said.

Cala abandoned being annoyed. “What’s afoot?” he asked, concerned.

Beshelar grimaced, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yestereve,” he began, and hesitated. “I know not how to explain-- there was a misunderstanding, someone misrepresented something I’d said to Aisava, who was so furious with me over it that he attacked me, and--”

“He attacked you?” Cala murmured, horrified.

Beshelar made a face, and nodded. “So I had to stop him, and it’s-- well, I hurt him.”

“Badly?” Cala covered his mouth with his hands.

“No,” Beshelar said, “no, not badly-- I pinned him to a wall, but in unlucky chance I cracked his shoulder blade.”

Cala grimaced. “Deret,” he said. Intense conversation, Ishean had said. That seemed more than intense.

“He was a courier, Cala,” Beshelar said. “Know’st thou how many duels he’s fought to the death?”

“No,” Cala said, taken aback.

“Neither do I! Likely greater than zero!” Beshelar was doing well at keeping his voice down but the intensity in his face was not moderate at all.

It was a fair point. Beshelar didn’t have magic, to easily stop someone without hurting them. For that matter, cantrips weren’t flawless at that sort of thing, which was why Cala hadn’t messed about with incapacitating Tethimar. Not with a knife waving around and Beshelar’s blood spattered bright across Edrehasivar’s white clothing. “So he’s injured, now,” Cala said.

“I took care of him last night,” Beshelar said. “He’s fine, but he’ll have to keep his arm bound, and Himself’s going to notice. I sent Kiru to make sure he’s really all right. And our argument is resolved, but it was a sensitive topic, and he thought I knew something I did not, which was why he was so upset-- it’s resolved now, but I don’t-- know what Himself will make of it.”

“What in the gods’ names did you possibly fight about?” Cala asked.

Beshelar looked down, as if stricken, and then looked back up, resolute. “I cannot-- Cala, it was-- I’d said something, and Csevet thought I was gloating to know something that-- I couldn’t possibly have known, it was so intimate a thing-- but I cannot--” He shook his head. “I cannot speak of it, and perhaps that is the worst part of it, that Himself will want to know, and it is such a deep, personal, private secret of his, it is no one’s business and only by the worst chance of misunderstanding--”

“I cannot imagine,” Cala said, shaking his head. “Some crime he has committed, or--”

“No,” Beshelar said. “Cala, no, it-- we have so little privacy, he has so little privacy, it is-- perhaps the last part of himself that remains his own business.”

Beshelar was more distraught than perhaps ever Cala had seen him. “I know not what to counsel you,” Cala said slowly. “It… sounds like Csevet’s place to explain it, and not ours.”

Beshelar was standing with his shoulders hunched miserably. Cala looked closer at him, and maybe it was a shadow or maybe he had a bruise along his cheekbone under his eye. “It feels like cowardice,” Beshelar said, “to say naught, and leave the mess for someone else.”

“Did he hit thee in the face?” Cala asked quietly, touching Beshelar’s cheekbone gently. Beshelar frowned, then looked uncertain. Cala moved his hand away and Beshelar brought his own up to press there.

“I suppose he connected,” he said. “There’s a mark?” Cala nodded. Beshelar made a face. “Barely,” he said.

Cala stood up straight. “This is very much a bed Aisava made for himself,” he said, “and it is for him to lie in.”

“Cala,” Beshelar said.

Cala shook his head. “Let him decide what to do with his secrets,” he said. “Attacking a nohecharis is not a way to solve any problems unless one is looking for them to be solved permanently.”

Beshelar looked mutinous, but said no more.

Himself came out in a moment, and Telimezh with him. Himself seemed subdued but alert, dressed with moderate fuss for a moderate day. He saw the two of them and said, “Is it the shift change already?”

“We’ve been pushing the time a little,” Beshelar said, “to make some adjustments to the schedule.”

Himself nodded thoughtfully, then peered at Beshelar more closely. “Is that a bruise?”

“Oh, we-- perhaps?” Beshelar put a hand to his face, as if he hadn’t just done the same a moment ago. “We don’t feel it, if it is.”

Himself gave Beshelar a considering look, then continued on toward the dining room. Beshelar pulled a face at Cala, and Telimezh boggled at both of them, pausing to look at Beshelar’s face.

“What--” he began, and Beshelar made a terrible grimacing face at him. Telimezh held up both hands. “All right, all right.”

They followed Himself into the dining room, and Telimezh shook his head a little at them and went off-shift. Cala went and stood by the far door, and Beshelar took up his place in the chair along the wall.

Beshelar’s ears were absolutely not under his control; they were low and distressed, as if he were at fault for some coming disaster. Himself had begun on his tea and was being served breakfast when Aisava came in. He was impeccably dressed, if simply, but his hair was in a simple queue like a maza’s, and he had his right arm bound against his chest in a sling. Kiru followed him in with a slightly battered leather folio, like a courier’s dispatch case, and set it carefully down on the table.

Aisava looked very subdued and downcast, and his ears were carefully neutral as he took his place at the table. Kiru took her leave, and there was a moment of silence as Edrehasivar stared at Aisava.

“Why,” Himself said, “what’s befallen you?”

“Kiru says it’s a cracked shoulder blade,” Csevet said quietly. “I can write, but I must keep it immobile for a couple of weeks, as much as possible.”

“How?” Himself asked. Then, “Did someone attack you?”

“No,” Csevet said, ears flattening in dismay. “No, Serenity. We--” He let his breath out, then visibly gathered himself. He looked terrible, and Cala rather thought he probably hadn’t slept. “We, there was a misunderstanding, and we mistakenly accused Beshelar of having done something terrible, and when he denied it we forgot ourself and tried to fight him, and he had to stop us, so he pinned us against a wall but by unlucky chance we hit a bit of wall molding, and--”

Himself swung around to look at Beshelar, who flinched, ears flattening further than Csevet’s had. “You broke him?”

Beshelar looked like me might be sick. “Nohecharei aren’t allowed to fight, Serenity,” he said. “We had to stop him without-- we tried to, without hurting anyone, we--”

“It was our fault,” Csevet said miserably. “We quite lost our head.”

Edrehasivar looked back and forth between the two of them, then stood up and went and looked at Beshelar, who cringed like a beaten dog, looking far guiltier than the situation warranted. “That’s where that bruise is from,” Himself said. “He did hit you.” He turned around and looked at Csevet. “What wert thou thinking!”

“We-- we weren’t, Serenity,” Csevet said. “It was-- a fantastical misunderstanding, absolutely ridiculous. We-- we would prostrate ourselves but if we get down we don’t think we can get back up.” He looked genuinely near tears.

“You _hit_ my _bodyguard_ ,” Edrehasivar said.

“I was off-duty,” Beshelar said hastily. “It was-- it doesn’t count as an attack on yourself, Serenity, if we are off-duty.”

Csevet made an awful noise. “No, not that-- _never_ that-- we would _never_ \--”

“It’s not that,” Himself said. “It’s not-- Csevet, no, don’t--” and he reached out and caught Csevet as the secretary tried to slide off the chair to prostrate himself. “No, Csevet, stop,” he said, and Beshelar came and helped him put Csevet back into his chair. Edrehasivar kept hold of Csevet’s free hand in both of his, and Beshelar went back to his post.

Csevet was bone-white and shaking, and despite himself Cala was starting to have pity on him. “S-s-serenity,” Csevet managed, but couldn’t get any words out beyond that.

“Csevet,” Edrehasivar said, “please calm yourself, we’re not angry with you, we just don’t understand.” He looked helplessly at Beshelar. “Is the matter at least resolved, between you two?”

“Yes, Serenity,” Beshelar said, “it-- it was entirely a misunderstanding.”

“We cannot imagine what sort of misunderstanding could possibly lead you to come to blows,” Himself said, shaking his head. He still had Csevet’s hand, and Csevet was still shaking, if anything more violently. Cala thought the man would weep but he was dry-eyed, and his expression seemed frozen.

When it became clear Csevet was not going to be able to answer, Beshelar cleared his throat and said, voice hoarse, “It was-- Serenity, something we had said had been imperfectly repeated, and in such a way that, purely by chance, it made it sound as though we knew something extremely private and personal about Mer Aisava and were gloating about it. When in truth, we had no such knowledge, and if we did-- well, an we had, did we then repeat it so crudely, Mer Aisava would be justified in a considerably more violent response than he did make, nohecharis or no.”

“Oh, dear,” Edrehasivar said. He looked from Beshelar back to Csevet. “We still don’t truly understand, but--”

“It was so personal a thing,” Beshelar said, “so private, and we did not know--”

“We will not ask for a further explanation,” Himself said. “We merely--” He stopped, and sat up straighter. “Was it us?” He looked at Csevet. “Was it aught that we said?”

Csevet’s expression was already so blank and frozen, like a rabbit in the face of a fox, that it was impossible to read any response in his expression. Himself turned to look at Beshelar, who grimaced, but raised his shoulders in what might have been a shrug, and made a helpless gesture, turning up his hands-- it was obvious to Cala that Beshelar was incredibly conflicted and did not know how to answer that yes, certainly it was Himself who had imperfectly relayed gossip, but Edrehasivar seemed not to understand that, and turned and looked, for some reason, at Cala instead.

“This is all very regrettable,” Cala said diplomatically, “but since it seems to have been an issue between the two of them that both claim is resolved, there seems to us to be no action we can usefully take. Had Beshelar been brawling, he would need to be punished, but it seems he only acted in self-defense, and though now it seems the force he used must have been excessive, it is true that it is very hard to gauge such things.”

“Did you know anything about this?” Edrehasivar asked Cala.

“No, Serenity,” Cala said. “We believe it must have occurred last night after our shift, and this morning just before you came out Lieutenant Beshelar was attempting to explain something of it to us, but we could not understand a bit of it. We are afraid we have no more background to offer than this: we know of no serious quarrel between the lieutenant and Mer Aisava before this, so we do believe his tale that it was a misunderstanding.”

Edrehasivar shook his head slightly, looking from Beshelar to Csevet, and finally sitting forward and looking more intently at Csevet. He still had the man’s hand in his, and he took it in both hands now. “You must come to me,” he said. “You cannot-- there cannot be fights in my household.”

“We understand,” Csevet managed to say. “It will not happen again.”

Cala had been fond of Csevet since he’d met him, and he was not without sympathy now, but Beshelar looked so miserable Cala couldn’t help but resent the secretary over it-- Beshelar was plainly not to blame for any of it. But the matter at the core of the whole affair was such a mystery, it was impossible to decipher it and understand how the conflict had arisen.

“You look so terrible,” Himself said finally. “We would send you back to bed except we have so little idea how to function without you.”

“We can pull ourself together,” Csevet said, taking a sharp breath and then wincing with it.

“Tea first,” Edrehasivar said, and Ishean had clearly been waiting for any such signal, for she appeared immediately in the doorway with a pot of tea and several plates on a tray.

Csevet made a valiant attempt to pretend normality, but it was transparently obvious that he was in a terrible state emotionally. He was in pain, too, though Cala could smell the faint aura around him of a pain-relieving cantrip Kiru must have cast. Without it, Csevet would have been in a great deal of trouble. As it was, Cala wasn’t looking forward to getting them through the day; he’d certainly have to cast it again, and he had very good grounds to think he likely wasn’t near as good at it as Kiru. He had a quite mild version he used on headaches all the time, but he rather thought that would be inadequate in this case.

They all had to talk Edrehasivar out of carrying Csevet’s dispatch case for him. Beshelar had already found a page to do the job, a boy distantly related to Esaran who had some vague schooling in court etiquette but most importantly was old enough to sit still. Beshelar managed to walk the fine line between terrifying the boy and keeping him in line, with more skill than Cala had expected.

Fortunately, the main activity of the day consisted of meetings all morning in the Rose Room, and in the afternoon, the attendance of a michen-opera with the Emperor’s heir and his sisters, so the page had very little to do and got to see an opera for his troubles.

To Cala’s great amusement, the younger girl, Ino, took a shine to Beshelar, and would not be dissuaded from going and climbing up into his lap. So Beshelar spent much of the opera trying to look stoic and alert with a tiny girl alternately assaulting him with excited elbows and nodding off. Cala spent the opera not quite hiding his amusement from Beshelar, and watching Csevet to judge when to renew the cantrip on him.

Csevet spent the opera alternately hunching miserably into himself and then watching in awe as Edrehasivar was visibly delighted by the activities on stage.

Edrehasivar’s understated but childish joy was a beautiful spectacle to behold, Cala had to admit. He was such a beautiful young man, and so visibly pure of spirit; he was one who could be genuinely touched by wonder, and it lightened the soul to witness it.

The opera itself was lovely, competently-performed, even though it was apparent that some of the performers were overawed by the attendance of the Emperor. Cala occasionally murmured to Edrehasivar that he should clap or cheer, so that they knew he approved; Himself got the trick of it once he overcame his natural reluctance to ever make a sound or draw attention to himself, and after that the performance went much more smoothly.

By the end of the opera, Ino was nearly asleep, and only roused drowsily to the applause as Beshelar stood up with her in his arms. She waved, but then put her face back down into Beshelar’s shoulder.

“We can take her,” the nursemaid said, a bit fretfully, but Beshelar looked at Cala, and Cala realized what he was asking.

“If thou but keepst watch,” Cala leaned in to say qiuetly, “I see no harm in thy encumbrance.”

Beshelar gave him a half-smile, and Cala said to the nursemaid, “He’ll keep her, you can see to the other girl,” for Mireän was rather overstimulated by the excitement. Her brother took one hand and the nursemaid the other.

Cala went and helped Csevet stand, and in all the confusion, focused himself, drew on all the energy surging in the air, and did the best job he had ever done in his life of settling the pain-relief cantrip gently down over Csevet’s shoulders. Csevet gasped, and stared at Cala in wonder as the others gathered themselves up.

“What was that?” he asked.

“The same thing Kiru did this morning,” Cala said, blinking to re-center himself. He pulled his glasses off, polished them, and hastily put them back on; he had to be alert now, as Beshelar was toddler-laden and the page was an extra person milling around with their entourage. (The page, Cala noted, was also overexcited after the performance, and was buzzing around with somewhat too much energy. Good; it was a net positive, for the group.)

Eventually, they had all collected themselves enough to leave the balcony box from which they’d watched the performance. The performers lined the hallway, and despite not lingering, Edrehasivar managed to touch each one of them with at least a glance of praise. Cala noted how it made them all glow, and he had little doubt Edrehasivar would remember all of their names. Most gracefully of all, Cala noticed that Himself was including Idra in all of this, repeating their names to Idra so that he also was included in the acknowledgements.

It was clearly deliberate: Edrehasivar was including Idra in what he did, in every appropriate way. Idra would absolutely be a popular political figure as he aged, but he would also be loyal. Had already proven himself to be, in fact, which was possibly a reason Cala was still alive.

Beshelar moved so easily with Ino on his hip, it was clear he was used to children, and it struck Cala that he’d never pried much into the man’s background. Once they were clear of the crowd, Edrehasivar did it for him.

“Almost we would think you had your own children, Beshelar,” Himself said.

Beshelar glanced over at him. Ino was completely unconscious, long legs dangling. She was too heavy for the nursemaid to carry thus without struggle, Cala realized, looking at the relative sizes of the two individuals; Ino was not a baby, and probably weighed a good third of what the nursemaid did. “Serenity,” Beshelar said, “we are the eighth of ten children, and our oldest sister married when we were seven and lived in the house with us and her husband, and once her babies were born we had much of the looking-after of them, so if once you are married you decide to dismiss us as your nohecharis, still we could be of service to your household as nursemaid.”

Everyone laughed at that, and Himself said, “We shall have to keep that in mind, Beshelar,” and then because he was a being of pure light, he added warmly, “but we cannot imagine ever wishing to dispense with your services as nohecharis,” and Beshelar glowed a little too.

Csevet was lagging behind slightly, and Cala paused to let him catch up, feeling like he was herding cats. Beshelar was paying attention, though, at the front of the group, and slowed as well. Cala fell in again behind Csevet, and thought with some worry that perhaps he had put a little too much power into the pain relief. Csevet was moving smoothly but there was a slight waver to him that suggested he perhaps wasn’t sure where his feet were.

Cala carefully shepherded him along, checking in frequently by eye contact with Beshelar. They made it back to the children’s family quarters, where Beshelar pried himself free with great tenderness and patience from the clinging Ino while Himself and Idra had some kind of grave and important conversation that left them both smiling quietly to themselves.

Csevet was still floaty, and Cala had to admit to himself that he’d certainly overdone it. Well, he’d only cast the cantrip for either very minor things, or very serious things, and he had little experience at the in-between that was needed, and in retrospect that was an oversight in his practice but it was too late now.

Cala was exhausted by the time they got everyone back into the Emperor’s apartments, where it was time for an outfit change before dinner, and it was a longer shift this time so he was going to have to keep them all going through dinner somehow. Beshelar took over much of the herding for the last stretch, and had unbent enough from his misery to ask Csevet as they came through the door, “Must I carry thee like Ino?”

Csevet laughed a little dreamily. “I’d quite like that,” he said, and gave Beshelar a sweetly flirty smile. Cala interrupted his own chagrin over having over-dosed the poor secretary by noticing that Beshelar’s ears went pink, as though he were pleased to be flirted with, perhaps, which was something about Beshelar that Cala had not particularly noticed coming from that quarter before. It was a very different shade of pink than Beshelar went when Csethiro teased him, to be sure.

That did add a wrinkle to the newly apparent dynamic between them, whereby the tightly-controlled Csevet had somehow been induced to physically assault the forbidding Beshelar and had received a broken bone in return. If there was in fact some sort of mutual sexual tension between them, then perhaps the heightened feelings could be explained. Certainly, it might explain some of Beshelar’s possibly-excessive guilt. But it certainly wasn’t that Csevet had propositioned Beshelar and been rejected-- Cala knew Beshelar well enough to know he certainly would not be offended by that sort of thing even if he did deem it inappropriate.

He resolved to ask Kiru about it, but in the meantime, said, “Mayhap you should carry him back to his room and put him to bed, Lieutenant,” as Csevet’s attendance was not needed at dinner at all. He was rewarded by an even deeper blush from Beshelar.

“Oh, yes,” Edrehasivar said, “Csevet, go and rest, poor dear. We’ve the Corazhas tomorrow, we’ll be needing you in better shape.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter note: I know this is a super minor thing but I’m actually stealthily way into historical costuming and so when I talk about thread buttons later in this chapter I’m referring to the ones at the top of this page, which I’ve actually never made but someday:  
> http://www.wmboothdraper.com/Buttons/buttons_main.htm  
> Side note: has anyone done much, like, analysis of the fashions in this book? Maia’s such an unreliable narrator, we only get his commentary when it’s things he cares about (like feeling naked without trousers)-- we don’t even get to know whether these are full-length trousers, or what? (Did I miss that? I humbly submit that I returned the book to the library and have been procrastinating purchasing my own copy, so I certainly have missed things.) Or what colors they are, beyond black or white. Is it like, 17th-century Europe, with padded jackets and knee breeches? Or more like the 18th? Clearly it’s meant to be flamboyant, before it became Illegal for Men To Wear Colors in the 19th-C, so… or is it? Again, he only mentions black and white as clothing colors. Do people have cool headcanons about it? We really get almost no information about women’s fashion save whether it’s stylish or not, apart from noting that trailing trains are en vogue, but for real, what does Csethiro wear for fencing practice??? And I admit I was envisioning tabards, not the, like, Girl Scout sashes (maybe GS don’t wear sashes anymore but they sure did when I was a kid ok) that are probably actually intended by the text’s use of “baldrics” for the nohecharei, but was apparently clever enough not to describe them as such, I think, but do let me know if I slipped on that anywhere.  
> LISTEN if anyone wants to holler about costuming I am SUPER INTO THAT SHIT but as it’s not a super visual fandom I am DEPRIVED.  
> Oh relatedly: weapons technology? *head tilt* We hear nothing except for a mention of a ‘hunting knife’, and Beshelar fends it off WITH HIS ARM-- are the nohecharei generally unarmed?? Or do they carry swords which Beshelar did not have the space to unsheath and honestly most of the time a bodyguard isn’t going to have the room for a sword so they’d probably be using a knife or even, like, knuckledusters or something-- and also, they have AIRSHIPS, are you really telling me they have no projectile weapons?  
> NO, the answer is that Maia doesn’t care, LOL. Anyhow-- I gave Beshelar a knife for this, ok, and dressed Csevet as a reasonably conservative 18th-century courtier.  
> *takes a moment to fish my brain out from where it’s meandered to Deret and Cala in a Scout troop* (I already did a fic where I combined soldiers and girl scouts, thanks .)


	7. Investigations

Csevet had passed the night, and then the day, in a haze of pain and shame and terror. Various bits floated up in horrifying sharpness-- the terrible concern on Beshelar’s face as he had understood the root of Csevet’s rage -- the sharp stabbing pain, ever-increasing, of every too-deep breath-- Maia Drazhar looking personally betrayed-- and then Cala had done something and all of it seemed very far away, foggy and haze-outlined and unworrying.

He found himself in his own chambers again, and someone, ah it was Beshelar, was untying the sling for his arm, and then undressing him, and Csevet was confused enough that he couldn’t recall why. Was this an assignation? When had he decided to have an affair with Beshelar? It wasn’t that the man wasn’t attractive, or to his taste-- he was, and when he could unbend himself enough for a conversation he was even pleasant to talk to-- but he didn’t remember making the decision.

He couldn’t remember very much at all, at the moment. “Oh,” he said, as Beshelar got his jacket unfastened and gently eased it off his arms. It was hard to move one of his arms. Beshelar was gentle, surprisingly gentle, Csevet couldn’t remember why he thought of the man as such a brute, he wasn’t that big really, and he wasn’t at all rough.

He caught Beshelar’s hand as the man was unfastening his trousers. “Aren’t we moving a bit fast?” he said.

Beshelar gave him a strange, soft look. “Csevet,” he said, “what did Cala do to thee?”

“Mm, no, he’s never done anything to us,” Csevet said. “It’s not that we wouldn’t, but. It’s hard not to find maza a little unnerving, don’t you think?”

Beshelar unfastened Csevet’s trousers and then pushed him gently down to sit on the bed, kneeling in front of him. But he bent to remove Csevet’s boots, then, which was a deviation from the script really, and then he pulled Csevet’s trousers the rest of the way off, which was more exciting.

“We don’t remember agreeing to this,” Csevet put in, confused between arousal and a very faint alarm. Something wasn’t quite right, and he wasn’t sure what, and maybe that was what was alarming-- he was always so careful to be in control, especially when he was-- “Am I drunk?” he asked in sudden alarm.

“I didn’t think so,” Beshelar said, standing up and gently tipping Csevet’s chin back with his hand so that he could reach the buttons of his shirt. “I think Cala used a cantrip on you so your arm wouldn’t hurt, and maybe did it too forcefully.”

“Oh,” Csevet said, absorbing that, too slowly. Beshelar’s hand had been so warm on his neck-- Beshelar had big hands, with calluses, he was probably a little rough in bed, and Csevet liked that idea. “Mazei _are_ unnerving. When did he do that?”

“We were under the impression he did it with your permission,” Beshelar said, and his face was doing something Csevet couldn’t easily read, not as far away as everything seemed at the moment.

“Of course,” Csevet said, “we would never say aught against-- oh!” He gasped. “Is Cala thy-- bed-friend? I never meant to-- please don’t be offended by aught I have said.” His mind seemed to be moving either too fast or too slow for the situation, because he immediately thought of something else. “Wait, if he is thy-- why art thou-- with me-- oh please do not involve me in a dispute in your relationship, he will curse me to death, don’t fuck me to make him jealous!”

Beshelar caught Csevet’s hands between his, gently, and bound Csevet’s arm back into the sling, which was initially alarming but then seemed comforting. “Csevet, I am not trying to do aught to thee but put thee to bed. Thou need’st to rest.”

“I’ve heard _that_ one before,” Csevet said, a little indignant. “Dost thou think I’m new at this?”

Beshelar looked sad, for some reason, and Csevet laughed. “Oh, worry not,” he said, “just because I am unimpressed with thy unoriginal lines means not I won’t still entertain thee. But-- thou canst speak plainly with me, Lieutenant, there is no need for coyness.”

“I-- Csevet, I am not--”

“Hush,” Csevet said fondly, putting his finger to Beshelar’s mouth, which was a great idea, he had such a lovely mouth, well-shaped and soft, and Csevet moved his hand to feel the nice sharp line of Beshelar’s jaw, such a statuesque jaw he had, and then he pulled a little so he could reach, and kissed Beshelar’s mouth. Beshelar was less enthusiastic than Csevet had expected, but he did not pull away, and after a moment seemed to be enjoying himself. At length his hand came up, curling around Csevet’s neck-- big, warm hand, good calluses, capable, knew what he was about, surely-- and then he pulled away, and he was looking becomingly pink but also-- again, with the sort of sad expression, and Csevet gave him a quizzical look. People normally did not look sad while they were kissing him, that wasn’t how this worked.

Beshelar had to clear his throat before he could talk. “I-- we have to go,” he said.

“Why?” Csevet asked, disappointed.

“We’re still on duty,” Beshelar said, “and thou’rt not thyself, Csevet, thou need’st to rest.” He pushed Csevet down, very gently, but inexorably, he was quite strong after all, and Csevet, once horizontal, realized he was quite tired, and something was poking him in his back and he couldn’t quite get comfortable.

“Oh,” Csevet said, and fell asleep.

 

Kiru almost felt bad for the way Beshelar’s face lit up upon seeing them; he looked exhausted, so tired he was visibly drooping with it, which wasn’t like him. She’d gone early to check up on her patient, who had been confused and sleepy-- Cala was heavy-handed with the healing charms, she’d figured out-- and had asked Telimezh if he’d come early to relieve Beshelar so she could take him aside and have a good thorough chat with him.

She had already cornered Cala in the hallway outside and heard his confused take on it. It meshed with her theory, that possibly Csevet and Beshelar were dancing around some sort of affair, and somebody’s overtures had gone amiss. She couldn’t reconcile it entirely, neither of them could-- Cala knew Beshelar well enough, he’d admitted with a slight blush, that he knew the man wasn’t at all offended by same-sex propositions, and Kiru had decided not to ask for any more details. But there had to be something to it.

Telimezh patted Beshelar on the shoulder as he went past, and Kiru stopped in front of him and looked up. “Come with us,” she said.

Beshelar looked stricken. “Is aught amiss?” he asked. “Csevet was all right when we last checked on him, though he seemed rather confused.”

“He is fine,” Kiru said, and led him down the hallway. There was a doorway there that led to a stairwell that was also blocked off with a door, and she’d found it a private enough place for conversations before-- it had been shown to her by one of the young female servants who had urgently needed to confer with her over a very private health matter. Beshelar looked around in some alarm, as it was very dark, but Kiru pulled the door to, and gestured a little maz-light into existence. They never lasted long but they worked for this sort of thing. “Now,” she said. “We need you to tell us what exactly is going on.”

“Going on with-- did Cala not give you a shift report?” Beshelar looked genuinely confused.

“He told us all he knows,” Kiru said. “Which isn’t much. Why did Csevet Aisava, a man who has been remarkable up to this point for his self-control, suddenly attack you out of nowhere?”

Beshelar’s ears dipped unhappily. “We already explained,” he said.

“We heard the story,” Kiru said. “But it doesn’t add up.”

“We’re sorry you think that,” Beshelar said stiffly, “but there’s no more to tell. That’s the truth and that’s all there is. He misunderstood incompletely-related gossip that made it sound like we had betrayed a secret of his.”

“So there is some secret that you know,” Kiru said. “You can tell us, Beshelar, if you’re having an affair with him, or the like, you know we won’t judge you. We just need to know so that we can understand.”

Beshelar’s ears flicked in what looked like surprise, but settled, and he shook his head. “There was not a secret that we knew,” he said, “but from the incomplete retelling, it seemed as though we knew it,” he said.

“So you know it now, but it wasn’t something you had knowledge of before,” Kiru said.

Beshelar looked resigned. “Yes,” he said. “So we had to learn of the secret in order to solve the misunderstanding, after the fight, but we had not known of it before.” She began to speak and he held up his hand. “Since it is a secret we should not have known, we will not betray it now either. It is a personal matter that does not affect any of this, and not our place to share it.”

“But it is about sex,” Kiru guessed.

Beshelar shook his head, but she could tell he wasn’t really denying it. “It is not our place to discuss it,” he said. “It is a personal matter and belongs not to us.”

“Are you having an affair with Aisava?” Kiru asked.

Beshelar shook his head, but his ear tips turned pink. “No,” he said.

“Are you quite certain?” Kiru asked. This kind of relentlessness generally served her well, and Beshelar was absolutely susceptible to it, she already knew.

“Yes,” he said, ears pinkening further.

“Swear it to us,” she said,

“We swear it,” Beshelar said, and his face was blushing a little now too.

“You do not look entirely convinced,” Kiru said.

“You have ways of telling the truth, do you not?” Beshelar said, betraying some exasperation. “Some maz, you could try? We are not having any kind of sexual relationship with Csevet Aisava.”

“You’ve never touched him,” Kiru went on.

Beshelar flushed darker. “Isn’t this entire problem caused by our hitting him yesterday? We _have_ touched him, with violence, and we regret it, but it was not sexual.”

“You’ve never kissed him,” Kiru went on, implacable.

Beshelar opened his mouth and then closed it. He looked resigned. “He kissed us,” he said, “this afternoon, when we put him to bed, but we are fairly certain he didn’t know who we were, at the time. It seems ridiculous to extrapolate that into us having an affair with him.”

Kiru realized with some dissatisfaction that this was probably it, the entire kernel of truth she’d been digging for. Beshelar wasn’t exactly a deep well of stillness; he was fairly transparent. She sighed. “Then we apologize,” she said, “for pressing you thus.”

“Himself is upset,” Beshelar said, and she recognized it as an offering, showing that he wasn’t angry with her for questioning him. That was good; she knew he had accepted her as a nohecharo, but was never sure how fragile that acceptance was. For many people, she was acceptable until she made herself notable somehow, and she was always worried about that with Beshelar. He wasn’t really in charge of them, but there was always the chance he might think he was; he had outranked Telimezh, before, and the Guard cared more about temporal rank than mazei tended to.

“That’s why we were prying so hard,” she said. “He is going to want us to explain it to him, and we do not understand it enough to explain it, and that is likely not to satisfy him greatly.”

Beshelar nodded thoughtfully. He looked unhappy, but resolute. “We most earnestly do not wish Himself to be unhappy, or to blame himself as he almost certainly will, but neither can we offer any further insight.”

Kiru nodded, and extinguished the little maz-light as she opened the door back out into the hallway. She was not looking forward to tonight’s shift by the Emperor’s bedside.

Sure enough, no sooner had the edocharei left, than Himself came and sat on the edge of his bed and said, “Kiru, we don’t understand what made Csevet behave so strangely.”

“We cornered Beshelar, just now, and tried to force him to explain,” Kiru said, “but he insists that he has told all he knows.”

“It’s our fault,” Himself said.

Kiru collected herself. “Serenity,” she said, “respectfully submitted, but you blame yourself for everything that goes wrong, and that just can’t be possible.”

“It is, specifically, in this case,” Himself said, with a wry ear-flick. “We had a frank discussion with Beshelar in which he very kindly answered some very personal questions for us, but when we pressed for more details, he admitted he knew no more, but suggested perhaps Csevet would. So I asked Csevet, and he seemed distressed, so I left off. That very evening, he attacked Beshelar, and when pressed, Beshelar admitted that it was because someone, he would not say who, had relayed incomplete gossip that had made it seem that Beshelar knew something compromising about Csevet, and it infuriated him so that he lost all sense.”

Kiru hadn’t heard it laid out so clearly. “Oh,” she said. “Yes, that is damning.”

Edrehasivar’s ears flattened, and she regretted what she’d said, but trying to claw it back would make it worse, so she said nothing. “It cannot simply be that Csevet is… well, we don’t even know that it’s something that he is, so much as it’s something he has done in the past, but--”

“It is a well-known and quite open secret,” Kiru said, “that the courier corps tends to attract a certain type of young men. Not just a particular class or caste of them, but also with certain inclinations and tendencies. The nature of the work, along with its cultural cachet, makes it easy for young men of certain proclivities and tastes to find fulfillment and acceptance.”

Himself twitched an ear. “You mean… marnis,” he said.

“Yes,” Kiru said. “It’s not necessarily intrinsic to the job, but it’s somewhat expected at this point, and that sort of thing makes it easier for people with these kinds of proclivities to find one another discreetly and avoid scandal.”

“Beshelar explained that, in his understanding anyway, it was partly a situation of opportunity,” Himself said. “That young men without prospects of marriage turn to one another for companionship.”

“That could be a factor,” Kiru said. “And then later, those same men have attained enough social rank to marry women, and it’s not that anything about their intrinsic nature has changed, merely the opportunities that they have. But, Serenity, there are also people whose inclinations do not change with opportunity; such a young man, with prospects, surrounded by eligible young women, still would not wish to court any of them.”

“Or my aunt,” Edrehasivar mused, “who married another woman; surely she could have found a man, had she wanted to.”

“You mean… your sister?” Kiru said, confused; it stood to reason that Edrehasivar would be in on the truth about Archduchess Vedero’s assistant, but she’d been under the impression the two of them weren’t formally married. She could be wrong, though; she was not the sort of person who was invited to those sorts of society events. 

Edrehasivar blinked. “No,” he said, “my-- my aunt… you weren’t on duty for that party, were you.”

“I might not have been,” Kiru said, silently panicking: did he _not_ know about Archduchess Vedero? Oh but he was the reason she wasn't married to a man-- surely he had to know-- perhaps he did not-- no, he had to be talking about someone else-- oh  _no_.

He frowned, then. “Which sister?”

Kiru shook her head. “Which aunt?” she asked. “I-- knew not you had any aunts, is all.”

“My mother’s half-sister,” Edrehasivar. “She disguised herself as a boy and ran away to sea, and is a sea-captain now, and has a wife.”

“She sounds _amazing,_ ” Kiru said, frankly boggled. But then she collected herself, to keep moving away from the slip about the Archduchess: the last thing she needed to do was give her poor Emperor half-heard gossip to accidentally mis-wield. “But. We were talking about-- yes, it is perfectly possible for people to fall in love just as profoundly with same-sex partners, even with the option of opposite-sex ones.”

“That was what I was asking Csevet,” Edrehasivar said quietly; blessedly, he was preoccupied enough with his own problems to ignore her slip. Kiru cast a silent prayer of gratitude outward to whichever god was listening. “Whether there were… men who cared about one another, and were not just taking comfort where it was available.”

“Then it seems clear that he was upset because he thought Beshelar had told you he was marnis,” Kiru said.

“That must be it,” Edrehasivar said. “And yet-- surely Csevet would not be so upset by this? Does he not know that-- I know I have discussed with him, that I don’t understand the taboo? What harm does it do, to let people love as they will, so long as there are still some left to produce enough children that society doesn’t fall apart?”

“Your position on this has been fairly clear,” Kiru said.

“So it doesn’t make sense,” Himself said. “I had more or less assumed that he knew I knew his… inclinations, already, and had taken pains to reassure him there was no problem.”

“I interrogated Beshelar,” Kiru said, “because I assumed the issue was that the two of them were embroiled in some sort of affair. Possibly with each other, but it could also be that one had stolen the other’s lover, or somesuch. But no matter how I asked, it seemed clear that this was not the case.”

“Beshelar doesn’t have any lovers,” Edrehasivar said. “He said as much, when Csethiro was teasing him. He hasn’t stolen any of Csevet’s, nor is he Csevet’s himself.”

“There are people who simply don’t incline in any direction,” Kiru said. “Like me; I have taken vows of celibacy, but I was eager to do so because I already knew about myself that I did not incline to anyone. I have never desired anyone, and so sometimes when people speak admiringly to me about the amount of discipline it must take for me to maintain my vows, I have to remember not to laugh at them, because that specific thing is the easiest thing in the world for me.”

“Really,” Edrehasivar said, interested.

“I do not think Beshelar is like that,” Kiru said, “but I also don’t think he is all the way any other direction. I do not think his heart inclines readily, and so being celibate is not that difficult for him either, so if the opportunity for light-hearted sex offers itself he could take it or leave it, and mostly leave it, but he won’t seek out anything more-- but I also think, an he did meet the right person, he might find himself just as tempted as anyone.”

“Is that normal?” Edrehasivar asked.

Kiru smiled at him. “There is nothing that can be said to be normal, strictly,” she said. “No two people are alike, and who is to say which of all the individual people in the world is the most correct in all their ways of being? No two hearts work the same way, and over the course of a lifetime, why-- a single heart may incline in different ways at different times in different situations. I imagine you had not felt your heart inclining to anyone before, in your old life, but that is likely due to a combination of there being no one for it to incline to, and no freedom for you to experience such a deep emotion when you had to be so concerned with just surviving.”

“The first person I ever really thought about-- that-- with is Csethiro,” Edrehasivar said, all in a rush. “But no one ever-- I never-- thought about it, before.”

“There are many different kinds of love,” Kiru said. “I don’t experience some of them, but I do others. Had I not taken a vow of celibacy, I think I could have entered into different kinds of relationships with different people. I could probably have found a man I could comfortably marry, and could probably even have had children with him, though it would be difficult for me to find that entirely satisfying, and so I never pursued that. I also could have probably found a woman whose partnership I could value, but as it happens, I found the god’s service instead, and that has made me happy. These things can look different depending entirely on how you enter into them. I don’t think you have to worry whether your feelings for Csethiro are the only feelings you could ever have, as long as you build that relationship on a genuine foundation, and pay attention to how the relationship grows as you both do.”

Edrehasivar’s eyes were wide and blank as he thought about that. “What if,” he said, but trailed off.

“There are as many ways to be married as there are people who are married,” Kiru said. “Some people are absolutely physically and emotionally exclusive. Most people rely on other relationships for some of their emotional needs, but meet most if not all of their sexual needs within the partnership of their marriage. Some people find that they are better off meeting most of their sexual needs outside of their marriage, and only come together to create children when necessary. The ones for whom such arrangements work out successfully are the ones who are honest with one another about it; there are plenty of people who have both been happy with such a partnership.”

“I don’t,” Edrehasivar said, “I-- I don’t want to be faithless.”

“You won’t be,” Kiru said, “as long as you stay honest. Serenity, you will be married for decades, barring misfortune. A lot will happen over those decades. If you approach it with the mindset that the two of you will meet obstacles as they come, and remain honest with one another, then you will most likely be able to do so.”

“What if I fell in love with a man?” Himself asked, nearly whispering.

“I do not know Csethiro Ceredin well except by reputation,” Kiru said, “but given the circles she moves in socially, I doubt very much whether she has the traditionalist’s distaste for the concept of marnis. Many of the women she associates with are marno themselves, and she has never exhibited any inhibition over it.”

“Really?” Edrehasivar squinted charmingly as he considered that. “Which ones? No, don’t tell me-- it sounds too much like gossip, which is how we got into this mess.”

Kiru laughed. “It does,” she said. “No, I’ll not name names-- it was more a general observation. My point is, Serenity, that there are plenty of people whose hearts incline based on criteria that do not primarily include the sex of the party they’re interested in. If your heart works that way, Csethiro is not likely to be repulsed by you, provided you are honest with her and respect her wishes.”

“Do you really think so?” he asked.

“I do,” she said.

He was silent a moment, looking at his hands in his lap. “I thought you were either marnis or not,” he said finally.

“No,” Kiru said. “It isn’t always something you are-- it can just be something you do. Just because you love a woman, does not mean you could not also be interested in a man. It does not make any of your love into a lie, just because you are capable of loving more than one way.”

Edrehasivar gave a sudden, somewhat-watery laugh. “Kiru,” he said, “I should have known better than to ask anyone but you for advice.”

“It’s not that I’m so wise,” she pointed out, which he regarded skeptically. “No, Serenity-- but think, I know to you Lieutenant Beshelar seems terribly old and self-important, but do you know how old he really is?”

“Twenty-five,” Edrehasivar said, but it was clearly a guess.

“He is twenty-two,” Kiru said. “Telimezh is only one and twenty. Cala is the old man of the group, at five-and-twenty. And I do not believe Csevet has passed more than his twentieth birthday. These are very, very young men, Serenity, and there is a great deal of the world they have never seen, and do not know about. They are not stupid and they are not trying to misguide you, but they don’t know the way either.”

 

It took two days for Deret to muster up the nerve to attempt to speak to Csevet again. Csevet had improved rapidly, and had discovered how to write just as fast as ever with his arm in the sling. He still seemed a bit downcast and was timid with Himself more than had been his wont formerly, but apart from that, life returned to normal, with the addition of the impeccably-behaved page boy who clearly hero-worshiped Himself and hung on his words at all times.

This embarrassed Himself slightly, but not to any great deleterious effect, and it had the side benefit of amusing Csevet, whose expression badly needed the lightness from time to time.

Beshelar had been distracting himself with reviewing the roll lists of potential substitute nohecharei. In order to give themselves time for the additional work, and to re-set their schedules for the wedding (it had been decided: Firsts for the ceremony, Seconds for the wedding night, which seemed well until Deret considered that the couple was likely to be quite tired that first night and so their second night, which would be the Firsts again, was likely to be the one he’d ardently wish to sit out-- but Cala didn’t seem worried, so he pushed that concern aside), the nohecharei had switched to two daily shifts instead of three, which meant punishingly long shifts but much longer rest periods during which they had time to do things like go and pester the Captain of the Untheliense Guard.

The mazei had been in deep discussion amid their own hierarchy and Beshelar was letting that proceed at its own pace; he was not going to stick his nose in until the matter was well-advanced, but he was absolutely going to interrogate their potential candidates in the final round of vetting. Cala had assured him they wanted that; after all, Cala himself had missed the signs once, and that was unacceptable.

And so it was after the end of a twelve-hour shift in which Deret had gone to some pains never to be convenient for Himself to pull aside and speak too intensely to, buzzing with exhaustion, Deret mustered his courage and went to Csevet’s chambers and knocked.

Csevet came to the door in a dressing-gown with his arm out of the sleeve, bound across his chest, and his hair down. He gave Beshelar a look that combined suspicion and resignation, which Deret liked not.

“What may we do for you?” he asked carefully, but stood aside to let Deret in, and closed the door behind him. He looked wan, and willowy, and-- well, Deret had noticed before how lovely he was, but he hadn’t really thought about it quite so much, until he’d seen him so emotional, and then the way he’d been so sweet and soft and flirty under Cala’s healing charm, and his mouth-- and everyone asking if they were having an affair-- and Deret knew that was a bad idea, so he was here to talk about literally anything else, but he was also here to talk.

“I just,” Deret said, “wanted to-- to apologize, in a calmer moment, and see that thou wert recovering well, and--” He trailed off, awkward, knowing that he was blushing.

Csevet looked him up and down coolly. “Yes,” he said, “we are recovering on schedule. Did you not see us today?”

The formal-first bumped sharply into Deret’s awareness, and he failed to keep his ears from flattening. Valiantly, he regrouped, and said, “We-- did, but there was little chance to speak of it.”

“Ah,” Csevet said. After a moment he said, “Well, there isn’t much to speak of, about it. Had you any other concerns?”

Deret stared at him in bafflement. He and Csevet had not been close friends, before, but this was bordering on actively unfriendly. That wasn’t fair, it wasn’t his fault the whole thing had happened, and he’d done all he could to keep it from being any worse than it had been. “We’ve done all we can to keep your secret safe, as well,” he said. “We-- has Himself said aught of it, to you?”

“No, he has not,” Csevet said. Something settled, in his expression, shifting away from suspicion and more toward the terrible resignation that Deret couldn’t parse at all. “So that’s what you’ve come for, then.”

“What?” Deret asked, confused.

“You intend to blackmail me over it? What will you have from us, in exchange for working so valiantly to keep our secret?” Csevet fairly hissed the last word.

Deret flinched back, like Csevet had slapped him with that hiss. “What?”

“Is it sexual favors you want? We’ve noticed you looking. That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve come to collect your reward, for keeping up your end of the bargain.”

Deret stared at him in horror. “What? No!”

Csevet laughed bitterly. “Oh, and now thou’rt disgusted by the very idea. Were we supposed to be more indirect about it?”

Deret was so tired that he felt like his mind was only slowly churning through the conversation, and he was trying to catch up with a wild turn he hadn’t foreseen. Instead of spluttering out an angry denial, or somesuch, he took a moment to breathe and think. “Whatever I say, you’ll assume I mean ill by it,” he realized. He pulled himself inward, making himself small, shrinking back toward the door, to go along with his mirroring of Csevet’s pronouns. “I merely wanted to offer you reassurance. This has been difficult for me and I didn’t feel that anyone but you would understand. But I see you don’t either, so I’ll leave you alone.”

“Thou’rt better at this than we’d thought,” Csevet muttered darkly.

“You’ve never had a very high opinion of me, have you,” Deret observed. It was a discouraging thought, but as he cast back quickly through his recollections, he found nothing to contradict the conclusion. Well, that was depressing. There was nothing left in him now but weariness, so he turned to the door. “Well, I’m still sorry for it, and I hope you continue to improve. Let me know if you need aught else from me.” And he left, closing the door carefully behind himself.


	8. Our Business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> temporary note: thanks to Kiwisson's eagle eyes, I had slipped up in the previous chapter and made Maia's aunt into his half-sister, which was incorrect, and then I had to fix the dialogue, and now it's both much more awkward and hopefully funnier. so do go back and watch Kiru miraculously extract her foot from her mouth, while also confirming something I'm going to bring up in future chapters but alas have not yet written a whole story about (but want to!)-- the fantastic and culturally rich lesbian subculture that is absolutely going to flourish during Maia's reign and indeed has been doing so ever since Maia sent his sister that note that she didn't have to marry.

 

Csevet stared at the closed door, baffled. He’d been so certain he had understood completely what was going on; it was the sort of thing he’d seen before, only of course higher-stakes because they had higher-stakes lives now, and then Beshelar had gone wildly off-script. He had been half-remembering something, _something_ , Beshelar’s mouth on his maybe, and he was uncomfortably certain of what the man surely wanted. In his experience, it wasn’t uncommon.

But that wasn’t quite the reaction he’d expected, and he wasn’t sure, now, what to do with himself; he’d consoled himself in resenting the man who’d hurt him, but now that made less sense. He also had to confront the sneaking suspicion that being under a maz so much of the time was impeding his judgment, but it was difficult to tease out how much of an effect it was truly having.

Uneasily, he thought about how increasingly impossible it was going to be to keep on as he had been, with this new uncomfortable dynamic between himself and the first nohecharis. And with the threat of his hopeless, foolish crush being revealed. Even if Beshelar, as he was revealing, was not the vindictive sort, his stout refusal to speak of it was in effect only hurting Csevet’s relationships with the other nohecharei, who didn’t understand but would take his side, the more so for not having any information to make a judgment themselves.

In the end, it didn’t matter if Beshelar kept faith; Edrehasivar wasn’t stupid, and was likely to figure it out, and the only real question was whether he’d do so before or after all the other nohecharei stopped speaking to Csevet entirely.

Csevet was going to have to resign, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

But it would have to wait until after the wedding. He’d have to survive until then, somehow.

  


Csethiro no longer had time to think about anything except the wedding. The wedding, the wedding, that was all. She had been fitted, and fitted, and re-fitted for garments, not just the dress for the ceremony but a different dress for the dinner beforehand and the dancing afterward. She also had been fitted for garments for her first public appearances as the Empress, and had been fitted with various of the jewelry that went with the role of Empress.

There had been some drama, as well, because some of that jewelry was in the possession of Csoru Zhasanai, who did not wish to return it, not being entirely clear in her mind on the difference between personal and ceremonial property. Csethiro was painfully aware that Csoru was going to try to make the wedding about her, somehow, and in fact was going to attempt to wrestle attention from every possible opportunity, going forward. And while it gladdened Csethiro’s heart, academically, that her beloved was not the sort of Emperor to relegate anyone who had ever looked at him funny or made him feel an emotion he didn’t like, she did wish he could be convinced to send Csoru at least a little ways away, at least for a short time, just to cut down on the endless drama, because this was going to be more than Csethiro could stand.

Csoru wanted to meet in person, to hand over some of the jewelry, and Csethiro wondered urgently what the penalty would be if she punched the woman. She had to devote real thought to it: what would Maia do? Importantly, would it give the factions who disliked him some kind of grounds for a grievance they could pursue, if she dueled Csoru to the death?

It was as she was pacing and fretting about this that she suddenly remembered Arbelan Zhasanai, who had really been Maia’s first and best return blow in the Wars of Csoru. She wrote immediately to the woman, and was favored with a speedy reply.

And so it was, when Csoru Zhasanai swept into the Ceredada apartment’s receiving room, it was to find Csethiro sitting with her aunt Arbelan.

“So good of you,” Csethiro said. “We’re so busy, we hope you don’t mind, we’re in the midst of consulting with our dear aunt, and she was good enough to go over the rolls with us-- we’re so eager not to become confused and confiscate any of your personal belongings, of course. This is such a difficult situation for all of us, we’re glad you understand.”

Csoru stood in dumbfounded astonishment, clearly not having expected to be thus outflanked. But, surely, here was a woman who had served as ruling empress for even longer than she had, and who intimately knew the concerns of the inventory of the Empress’s maru. _I’ll pay for this later_ , Csethiro thought, watching Csoru’s face change slowly, but in the moment, it was a victory. Sure enough, Arbelan calmly and sweetly pointed out a number of omissions, where Csoru had claimed various jewels as her own unwarrantedly, and when Csoru burst into tears about it, Csethiro did not have to hit her because Arbelan said, quite cuttingly, “If you cannot comport yourself in public perhaps it is time for you to retire from public view,” which shut her up.

After the interview was completed, Csethiro turned to Arbelan. “We will absolutely be made to suffer for that,” she said.

“As long as we are here,” Arbelan said, “we will share the cost. That woman is a menace.”

Csethiro sat down heavily, and said, “How many wives will Maia bury after me, do you think?”

Arbelan said nothing, but came and sat next to her, and put her arms around her. “Gods willing,” she murmured quietly, “none.”

  


“Didst thou _sleep_?” Cala murmured to Beshelar, looking in astonishment at his grim, exhausted face at the beginning of their shift.

“A few minutes,” Beshelar admitted, rubbing his eyes. “Captain Orthema had-- a great deal to say to us.”

There was heightened security all around the Alcethmeret for the wedding, involving far more patrols than normal and more checkpoints where the Unthelienese Guard was inspecting visitors. This was the place for the first proving of all the possible substitute-nohecharei candidates, as well; they were forming into patrols that would liase with the on-duty nohecharei to help provide extended security around the person of the Emperor.

Captain Vizhenka’s half-eshpekh had been a real boon, as well. The Untheliense Guard was inextricably bound up in court politics-- required to patrol certain areas to appease the desire of various families not to feel left out of the security, and the like. But the Hezethoreise Guard had no interest in the petty politics of the Untheliense Court, and so Captain Vizhenka’s men were free to focus exclusively on the protection of the royal household. Beshelar in particular had become very fond of them, and was one of the biggest proponents of their use; Cala was half-expecting that one or two of the likeliest of them would be suggested eventually as possible substutite nohecharei, if Beshelar had any say in it. It would scandalize the Untheliense Guard enormously, and Cala was too tired at the moment to look forward to how much fun that would be.

In the meantime the crisis was that there had been rumors that there were likely to be people who would object to Edrehasivar’s marriage because it indicated that he meant to produce his own heirs. There had been some belief that he would simply rule as a regent until his nephew was of age, apparently, nonsensical as that seemed (and contrary to all precedent and behavior-- why be crowned in his own right if he didn’t intend to go on as such?), and marrying was an undeniable signal that this was not his intention.

Orthema was of the opinion that Edrehasivar had been far too lenient on the Tethimada and the Chavar conspiracists. But, at least, he could say for certain that Sheveän was not involved. But Idra was now under twenty-four-hour guard, as well-- not out of suspicion against him, but that someone might attempt to abduct him in order to use him as the pretext to stage a coup.

Orthema’s insistence on poison-tasters had only been headed off by Cala’s intervention; mazei could test for poison without anyone having to risk a life, so he and Kiru were now matter-of-factly examining every morsel that passed the lips of the Emperor’s immediate household.

A maza had been assigned to Csethiro as well, to do the same for her. She hadn’t quite been assigned nohecharei of her own, as that was an exclusive privilege to the Emperor, but she was being guarded as closely as Idra. Her guard included a rotation of several of the Hezethoreise Guard as well, to the apparent great distraction of everyone. She herself had professed to be delighted, Edrehasivar had related from one of her ciphered letters.

“I didn’t get much time to rest either,” Cala admitted. Himself was dressing for dinner. “One moment, I have a wakefulness charm. That might get us both through.”

“I hope so,” Beshelar said. Cala closed his eyes and focused; he was better at this one than the pain relief charm he’d overdone on poor Aisava. This one had seen him through some of the harder days of his training.

He heard it hit Beshelar; the man sucked in a deeper breath, and let it out slowly. “Oh, that is better,” he said.

Cala opened his eyes. “Isn’t it? I’ll be sorry when it wears off, but you ought to be fine.”

“Oh dear,” Beshelar said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cala said. He was a little bit worried; the poison-testing was a bigger drain on his powers than he was accustomed to. But there was no sense worrying about it.

Himself came out, looking resplendent but tired. “Oh, you two look better than we had worried you might,” he said, cheerfully enough. “Has Captain Orthema let you get any sleep?”

“Precious little,” Beshelar said, “but it is precious.”

Cala exerted himself enough at dinner that he had to retreat slightly dizzily to the corner and sit for the rest of the meal. Beshelar noticed, and stepped in to cover for him; at the end of the meal, he brought Cala a glass of water and a sweet bun he’d stolen off Edrehasivar’s plate just after it was cleared. The sugar helped perk Cala back up, and the water eased his headache for a while.

Cala leaned against the wall, pressing his forehead into the flocked wallpaper, while Himself was off bathing and dressing for bed. Beshelar came up next to him and put a hand gently against his back between his shoulder blades. He’d been spending enough time with goblins, Cala thought, that he was starting to absorb some of their habits, if he was going around touching other people with his bare hands like that. It was pleasant, though; Beshelar’s hand was large and warm and comforting.

“Wilt thou survive?” Deret asked softly.

Cala laughed, no louder than the sound of his breath. “It’s just a headache,” he said. “We can meditate our way out of that and be fine by morning.”

“Should’st not have wasted thy wakefulness charms on me,” Beshelar said.

Cala shook his head slowly. “It is well, Deret. I need thee.”

Beshelar’s hand was such a welcome, grounding pressure on his back, and stayed there for a long moment. Cala opened his eyes and blinked at Deret, who was clearly casting about for words for a response to that. But Cala understood, and smiled, and Beshelar smiled back.

“We’ll make it,” Beshelar said. “It’s not long now.”

“Mm, maybe they’ll spend their whole first day married in bed,” Cala said, brightening a little.

Beshelar grinned. “Mayhap,” he said. He patted Cala’s back and finally removed his hand, turning around, and then Cala heard him stand up straight and knew someone was there. He peeled himself off the wall to look.

Csevet was standing there, fully-dressed and perfect as ever-- he’d found someone to do his hair, or his arm had healed enough for him to do it himself, but he looked flawless, his expression perfectly neutral.

Beshelar was acting like Csevet were a stranger, some high-ranking official visiting who had no connection to the household, and was giving him a look that almost seemed suspicious. Cala squinted between the two of them, and said, “What now? Was there another meeting, we forgot? Only Himself’s already in the bath, we’ll have to reschedule it unless whoever it is wants to meet him naked.”

Csevet colored faintly, just a little pink across the tips of his ears. “No, not a meeting. But as we were organizing our papers for tomorrow we discovered a note we must provide the answer to.”

“It can’t wait until morning?” Beshelar asked, skeptical. It was unfriendlier than he ought to be, to Csevet, but then Cala put together his earlier idle assessment that the two of them were avoiding one another with his memory of a prior incident, and recognized that they must be on the outs, which was really an inconvenient thing and while it was good they were keeping it understated, it wasn’t, on the whole, in any way, acceptable.

“Deret,” Cala sighed.

Beshelar looked mutinous. “No, it can’t wait until morning,” Csevet said, stiffly correct.

“So I’m to haul him dripping from his bath,” Beshelar said.

“I think it can wait for him to be dried off and dressed for bed,” Cala said, and Csevet lifted his chin a little, determined. “Shall I?”

“No,” Beshelar said, “we’ll go and see if he can present himself,” and betook himself resentfully into the chamber.

Cala turned and looked at Csevet, whose chin was set as if facing a difficult and unpleasant task, instead of simply conferring with their boss over some simple matter. “Are you angry with him for injuring you?” Cala enquired, making only the smallest effort not to sound sharp about it.

“No,” Csevet said, as if that were a ridiculous question.

“But you fault him, for his response,” Cala said.

“No,” Csevet said, sharp and cold.

“You think he had some choice, perhaps, to do other than what he did,” Cala guessed.

“No,” Csevet said. “Athmaza, we have no complaint against Beshelar.”

“You are just angry with him, and that is that,” Cala concluded. “And we are all going to have to put up with your petulance about it.”

“Point out, for us, an instance where this has impacted you in any way,” Csevet said.

“Oh, certainly we can’t,” Cala said. “Because we’re not under any pressure at all, and won’t find it difficult to work around one of the pivotal members of his Serenity’s household having a childish hissy fit about another doing his damn job. It’s so fortunate that this is such an easy time for all of us and none of us is short on rest and long on responsibility, and we have so much time for infantile grudges.”

Csevet set his jaw, but had no ready reply. Cala waited a moment, and then continued. “Beshelar has devoted more of his time to attempting to make things right with you than he could afford, especially considering he did nothing wrong in the first place. The last time he went to apologize to you, which we told him not to do, he came back so upset he couldn’t even speak to us.”

Csevet looked down, at that, his expression shifting from stubborn anger to something a bit less certain. “We must apologize to him for that encounter, you are correct.”

“We can’t imagine what you said to him,” Cala said. “He has had nothing but concern and sympathy for you and won’t say a thing against you.”

“He came to remind us that he was, quote, _keeping our secret_ ,” Csevet said, with a flash of-- anger, or something-- “Can you blame us for assuming he meant to blackmail us?”

Cala recoiled. “What could-- hast thou ever _met_ the lieutenant? And what would any of us want with money? What could we even do with it?” He was truly offended.

“There are things other than money that blackmailers want,” Csevet said. “Forgive us, but our previous experiences in this matter colored our expectations. We have just told you, we mean to apologize for our assumption, but there has not been opportunity.”

“Our imagination fails us,” Cala said, “we cannot begin to imagine what you would think Beshelar could possibly attempt to extort from you.”

“Sexual favors,” Csevet said bluntly. “That’s the usual.”

Cala opened his mouth, then closed it, and said finally, “ _Beshelar?_ ”

“Maybe he doesn’t look at _you_ like that,” Csevet said, a little defensive.

“It’s not that,” Cala said, with an incredulous laugh. “The man has such a thicket of moral principles, he won’t begin to consider even the most casual sexual contact with anyone not precisely his rank or social equal.”

Csevet blinked at that, perhaps thrown off guard by the humor of it, as Cala couldn’t help but present it as funny. “How many people does that include?” he asked, voice suddenly mild in his astonishment.

“Zero, as far as we can tell,” Cala said.

“What, not even thou,” Csevet said, taken aback.

“In truth I have not had the courage to truly ask,” Cala said. “It is a conundrum I feel ill-equipped to address at this juncture; I know not what my response would be if he thought he outranked me too much, or I him, but if his answer was yes I know not in what free time we should ever have the leisure to explore it.” He shook his head slightly, and then remembered he’d been in the midst of an angry conversation, and drew himself up. “Which is why it galls me excessively to see him expend so much effort apologizing for something that was not his fault!”

Csevet’s face closed up again, and he tucked his chin down this time. “We know we must apologize to him, but not in what time we’ll manage to effect it.”

“It’s not like his whereabouts are ever a mystery,” Cala said reprovingly, but Csevet had admitted wrongdoing and looked so sad it was hard to maintain any kind of moral sense against him. “But, yes, he is not exactly at leisure much, of late.”

The door opened suddenly, and Cala startled a little; he was perhaps a bit too much on edge. Himself, resplendent in a lovely quilted dressing-robe Cala had somehow never seen before, said, “Csevet, what is the matter?”

His damp hair was braided for sleep, and he looked soft and child-like without any jewelry. Csevet looked almost dumbstruck by him, as if he did not see the man for hours every day, but in a moment found his tongue. “Ah,” he said, “Serenity, we, ah,” and produced a letter. “Forgive us, but this was delivered after you had left for dinner, and we did not read it until just now. It requires an answer before tomorrow morning.”

Himself took the letter and read it, frowning in concentration. He was too young to have lines on his face yet, not even the beginnings of crow’s feet, but it was possible to see where he would wind up with a crease between his lovely dark eyebrows from considering things too deeply. “Ah,” he said, in dismay, “how should we answer?”

“For tonight, just a yea or nay to proceed would suffice,” Csevet said, “and we can write up a formal response tomorrow, with more guidance, but if they are to begin the work as planned they need to know for hiring the day labor tomorrow, and that is normally conducted before the business day properly begins.”

“In truth,” Himself said, “we remember the discussion of this matter but we do not recall what the determination was.”

“The determination was that they had to calculate out how long it would take,” Csevet said, “and this is the answer: they must start tomorrow at the latest. It took this long to figure out, there is not time to wait, as they should have started yesterday but had not finished the determination yet.”

“We were then still going to calculate if it was worth doing,” Himself said. “This is too sudden.”

“If you say nay,” Csevet said, “then the secondary plan was to attempt to repurpose the existing space with temporary improvements. We had advised that it would be a false savings, likely, once we calculated out the cost of renewing the temporary improvements.”

Edrehasivar bit his lip, considering; the crease between his eyebrows disappeared completely as he did so. “Then we should allow them to proceed,” he said. “Think you the same?”

“We do,” Csevet said. “So we will tell them yea, and tomorrow we must review the finalized cost estimate.”

“Yes,” Himself said.

“Then that is all, Serenity,” Csevet said, and bowed. “Thank you, we will take care of it. Sleep well.”

“We hope you manage to get some rest as well,” Himself said, and retired. Beshelar started to follow him, but Cala jerked his chin at himself. Beshelar hesitated, then nodded, and went outside the door so Cala could enter.

As Cala went in, he said to Csevet, “You know, now would be a good time,” and shut the door.

  
  


Deret looked at the door, wondering what Cala meant, and then turned around. Csevet was still standing there, looking resigned. Deret waited, but the secretary didn’t leave. “Did,” Deret said finally, “did you need aught else?”

“We need to apologize to you,” Csevet said, expression very neutral, ears perfectly neutral, voice extremely collected.

Deret waited for it to make more sense, but it didn’t. “To us?” he said.

“We are sorry we assumed your motivations were so mercenary,” Csevet said. “We understand that of course you would never blackmail anyone for any reason.”

Deret exhaled slowly, absorbing that. “We thank you,” he said. “It was-- an unnerving accusation.”

“It’s happened to us before,” Csevet said, staring fixedly over Deret’s shoulder. “So perhaps we-- weren’t seeing the actual situation as clearly as we thought.”

“Oh,” Deret said. He was somewhat distantly aware of part of himself being upset, for Csevet, and it solidified as he thought of it. “Someone-- for-- oh.”

“We have never had very much money,” Csevet said, “but that doesn’t stop that sort of person.” He cleared his throat. “It has made us consider now what someone could attempt to extort from us.”

Deret shook his head. “How many other secrets do you have?” he asked.

Csevet blinked. “Well,” he said, and clearly hadn’t considered that.

“It’s not--” He hesitated, trying to think of a kind way to put it. “It’s not exactly a devastating secret. It is potentially awkward, but at worst it would be embarrassing. Were you embezzling funds, committing crimes, using your influence unduly, taking bribes-- that sort of thing would make you vulnerable. Being in love with your boss is a minor issue that only you and he may care about, and he may not even pay it much heed depending on the nature of the revelation, if and when it comes.”

Csevet blinked again. “But,” he said.

Deret shook his head. “We would have cautioned you about carrying on with Azhalet or anyone else if it were a particular danger that you might cause a scandal, but Himself’s very existence is enough to make most of those rules not apply. He clearly cares nothing for it, so it is difficult for anyone else to try to make a case about it.”

Cesvet had clearly been tormenting himself over this, and Deret felt almost sorry for how easily he was dismissing him. But there quite simply just wasn’t that much to it. “And you’re clearly so important to Himself,” Deret said, “that anyone who tried to leverage any kind of scandal to come between you is likely to have it rebound unpleasantly on them instead.”

“That’s,” Csevet said. “You.”

“We aren’t just a brute, you know,” Deret said. “First Nohecharis has to do security analysis. We spent most of our rest shift with Captain Orthema yesterday trying to lock up every single loose end that could possibly let someone with bad intentions access the Emperor. There aren’t many angles we haven’t considered by now.”

“We haven’t,” Csevet said, “that is, we never thought you were--”

“We’re scenery,” Deret said, “to almost everyone, and that’s more or less the point.” He took some pity on Csevet’s disconcertedness, thinking of how exhausted the poor young man must be, and how much strain he’d lately been under. “But what this means to you, Mer Aisava, is that in future if anyone attempts to exert any kind of leverage against you, or tries to extort anything, or put any pressure on you, or make you feel unsafe in any way, then the thing for you to do would be to bring it to our attention. We likely cannot see to it directly, but we will know who can.”

“You,” Csevet said, surprised. “For-- us. But we’re not--”

Deret shrugged. “You’re part of the Emperor’s dav,” he said, using the Barzheise word on purpose. “That makes it our business.”

 


	9. A Joyous Union

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Story earns its Explicit rating, finally. Uhh, like, _a lot_.  
> Warnings mostly for the expected stuff, some filthy language; no trauma or flashbacks or anything, just really explicit heterosexual sex.

 

The wedding passed in a blur for Csethiro; she’d barely slept, for nerves, and hadn’t eaten, so she was queasy with a mix of hunger and sour nervous stomach, and all of her was weighted down with jewelry and the most heavily-ornamented clothing she’d ever worn. The day was too bright, the light hurt her head, everyone was too excited and it made her cross.

It was a long day of ceremonial duties, and she had to change outfits twice, the last the most exacting as evening drew near and it was time for the ceremony. She’d managed to eat only in small amounts during the day, and now had passed through hunger and nerves into exhaustion.

But all of it seemed to fall away, at least for a moment, when she saw Maia, finally, arrayed in his ceremonial garb. Both of them were veiled, but they were sheer white veils so she could see him. And he was stunning, a glimmer of shadow through the sheer gauze, his strong sharp features delicate-looking, his slim lithe frame clad in gorgeously-embroidered white on white fabric that showed off his perfect lines. His hair was a sweep of raven ornamented with pearls, built up around the Ethuverazid Mura-- and she knew it was all his hair, unlike the previous Emperor who’d needed a hairpiece to support the thing, by the end. It even looked better against the black of his hair than the more usual white.

The stunning impression he made was completed when he saw her, and fixed his gaze on her-- his pale gray eyes were shockingly bright and she went still, breathless with the clarity of them, until her lady-in-waiting prodded her gently to remind her to keep walking.

She couldn’t stop staring at him, nor he at her. At last he came close enough, and they got to a point in the ceremony where the officiant came and took her hand and put it into Maia’s, and then she was touching him and she felt enormously better. She could face anything now. His hand was warmer than hers, and he managed to smile at her. He had so many rings on, and he was so beautiful and he was going to be hers, and whatever else she had to do, at least he was her ally in it. Her courage came flooding back to her, her courage and resolve, and she spoke clearly when asked to now; she could feel her feet on the floor, she could pay attention now and know what was going on.

She swore her oath to him, and to her surprise he swore an oath her in return-- she didn’t think that was standard. A few murmurs in the audience confirmed for her that it wasn’t. She had to fight sudden unexpected tears: he was so beautiful, he was so kind, he was so brave, he was so unusual. And he was hers. She could do this; she could do anything.

Suddenly it was over, and he was favoring her with a brilliant smile, nearly blinding, both of their veils pulled back and their faces bared to one another, the gods, and the audience.

He took both her her hands in his and stepped closer to her. He was only a handspan or so taller than she was, but this close she had to tip her head back. “So, we did it,” he murmured, quirking an eyebrow.

She was grinning like a fool, she realized, staring up at him to the exclusion of noticing anything else. “We did,” she said. And then she remembered what she’d been looking forward to. “Kiss me,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “What, now?”

“Now,” she said. It was an old way of striking an agreement. “Thou mad’st me a promise, seal it now.”

He grinned at that, a little shyly, but obliged, tipping his head down until his lips just touched hers. She pressed in a little, but only a little, holding tightly to his hands. “Does that seal it?” he asked, looking down into her face with his expression all sweet and soft.

“It does,” she said. “I am satisfied, for now.”

He laughed at that, edging between coy and shy, and they turned and processed out, hand in hand.

The following dinner was increasingly a haze of exhaustion and a little bit of inebriation. She got to sit next to Maia, got to drink from the same cup as him, endured endless toasts but finally, finally was relieved enough that she could eat, and she managed to get enough into her stomach that she was no longer drowsy and faint.

Then was the dancing, and this was it, what they’d rehearsed for-- she was able to truly enjoy it as she had nothing else that day. Maia was visibly nervous at first, but in her arms he brightened at each small success until he was radiant with it, triumphant and beautiful. At the end of the dance she put her hand to his jaw and pulled him down and kissed him, really kissed him, and he held onto her like he was astonished but he also opened up for her, returning her kiss to her all sweet and tasting of wine and heady desire.

She laughed then, for joy, and they danced again together, and it all blurred into one long swirling movement punctuated by kisses until she was nearly stumbling with exhaustion. Maia caught her then, and pulled her against himself, holding her up. “My lady,” he said softly, “thou’rt weary. Hast thou danced enough?”

It came to her in a rush, then, that this was their wedding night, and she could hold him this close-- his body was sturdy and taut against hers, even through so many layers of embroidered fabric. She laughed up at him, and said, “Is propriety satisfied? Ceremony? Then I am satisfied.”

“Then let us take our leave,” he said, and bent down to kiss her. She let herself melt against him, trusting him to hold her up, and he did, and his mouth, so long longed-for, was now familiar to her, warm and soft and alive, his tongue and his teeth and his lips and, importantly, the way his dark eyelashes fluttered down as if he just couldn’t keep them up against the weight of her passion.

There was some genteel ribbing as they took their leave briefly and processed off to the Alcethmeret, and thence to the Emperor’s chambers. Csethiro had never been there, of course. And she would not be living there, but she was reassured to discover when she arrived that her attendant was waiting there for her, joined by the new pair of edocharei who’d been brought on to serve now she was Empress. They’d brought her several changes of clothing, and had been given a room so they could sleep here while she was here, and if she needed them at any time, they told her, the Emperor’s nohecharei would summon them, so that she could depart in decent dress whenever she decided she wanted to leave, even if it was immediately.

“We shan’t be leaving immediately,” Csethiro said, amused.

“Then we shall dress you for sleeping,” her attendant said.

“There are facilities should you require a bath,” said one of the Emperor’s edocharei, a stocky young half-goblin man.

Csethiro considered the logistics of attempting to bathe, here. “No, thank you,” she said, “escaping from this confection of embroidery should be enough, thank you,” but of course there was jewelry to remove, and the like. Maia pressed her hand with his and departed in a swarm of his own edocharei, and Csethiro found herself in a small sitting room with her attendants busily working at the fastenings of her garments.

Kiru Athmaza appeared suddenly next to her. “We’re just changing shifts now, the nohecharei,” she said. “And we thought we’d take advantage of our fellow womanhood to come to you in this private setting and ask you if you have any concerns or doubts, speaking both as a healer and as a woman.”

Csethiro managed to stifle a yawn. “We are of course terrified of dying in childbed,” she said, “but have sought to educate ourselves and are not overmuch concerned about that _tonight_.”

“We were permitted to review and give our healer’s opinion on the manual you sent his Serenity,” Kiru said, “and were much impressed. Have you been tracking your cycles?”

“We have,” Csethiro said. “We recently ended a cycle and it will be a week or two until we are potentially ready for conception.”

“Good to know,” Kiru said. “So, you likely have far fewer questions than most brides at this point.”

“Our questions are unanswerable,” Csethiro said. “We consider ourself fortunate that we feel we likely have less to fear than most brides, as well.”

“He’ll not hurt you,” Kiru said warmly. “Nor you him. You’re better-prepared than most.”

“We hope so,” Csethiro said. “But-- this means you’ll be attending his chamber, yes?”

“Yes,” Kiru said. “We thought it best, for tonight.”

Csethiro sighed in relief. “In truth we trust all his nohecharei, we have come to know all of them and like them all, and have even discovered that we enjoy teasing Lieutenant Beshelar, but we did not like to think of him shaking his head the other side of the curtain as we attempted to choreograph the loss of our maidenhead.”

“Deret Beshelar is a darling child,” Kiru said, “of whom we are very fond, but he is not graceful at handling anyone’s embarrassment.”

“Exactly,” Csethiro said. The last of the wedding dress was gone, and she sat, gratefully, in her under-shift, as the attendants carefully removed all the gems from her hair, and her crown, and her necklaces.

“We had thought,” Kiru said, “to offer you,” and she used the plural, “a choice, but we’ll offer it first to you: you seem very weary, and have had a long several days now. The first choice is that we can cast a charm of sleep on you, so that you will sleep quickly and heavily, and awake early and refreshed. The second choice is that we can cast a charm of wakefulness on you, so that you’ll have an hour or two of clear-headed alertness before sleep takes you.”

“We don’t wish to sleep,” Csethiro said, a little plaintively. “We’ve waited so long for this-- and, there are political concerns, people who don’t want this marriage would be delighted to discover it unconsummated-- and also we’ve a salon tomorrow with various people who are absolutely going to expect a lurid accounting and if we have to lie, we might cry.” She wrung her hands together, and concluded, “But mostly, we’ve waited so long-- we _want_ our wedding night.”

Kiru nodded. “We’re going to go and ask Himself what he wants, now, but we doubt that once he’s heard your choice he’ll choose otherwise.”

“Thank you,” Csethiro said, and stood up at her attendants’ urging, so that they could strip off her under-shift and replace it with a nightshirt. Her hair was in soft protective braids now, and they had a basin of warm water so she could wash her face and hands, and after a brief brisk rubdown with a clean soft towel she felt quite refreshed, if achingly exhausted.

They had a new dressing-gown for her, as well; she was to have a whole different wardrobe now, as Empress, and that apparently included private wear. Wrapped in the gown, she floated muzzily back into the antechamber, and noted Lt. Telimezh standing by the door. He was lovely, and she was fond of him, but she was also glad he was not to attend the wedding-night chamber; something about a young man listening to her and her husband was not appealing, in that moment.

She greeted him, and he smiled at her. “T’was a beautiful wedding,” he said.

“Was it?” she asked. “We hardly saw anything.”

He gave her a sweet fond look. “We noticed you were only looking at Himself,” he said.

“He was so beautiful,” she said. “I couldn’t look away.”

Telimezh nodded. “Aye, he was that,” he said. “But-- my lady, you also looked so lovely, and so happy. Everyone remarked on it.”

She smiled dreamily. “I am,” she said.

Kiru appeared in the doorway, and beckoned her in, so she went. Her attendants lingered at the door. “Send for us if you need us,” they said, and she smiled at them and promised she would.

And with that, Csethiro Ceredin stepped into Edrehasivar VII’s bed-chamber, and the doors closed behind her, and she became, as far as gossip was concerned, Csethiro Zhasan.  

But at the moment, she was more interested in becoming Csethiro Drazharan, wife of Maia Drazhar, who was sitting self-consciously in the seat of the window casement next to Kiru Athmaza. He was wrapped in a beautiful fur-lined robe, and his feet were bare and his hair was in plain unadorned braids down around his face, and he looked soft and young and nervous, and Kiru had her hand on his shoulder.

He stared at her as she came in, and Csethiro had a moment to feel self-conscious as well, but then Kiru stood up. “We are going to apply the wakefulness charms to you,” she said. “Because we want you both to be clear-headed for this, His Serenity agrees.”

“What must we do?” Csethiro asked.

“Stand still,” Kiru said, smiling. She closed her eyes and visibly gathered herself, then opened them and spread the fingers of her right hand outward, holding up her palm near Maia’s face. He blinked, sucked in a breath, and sat up straighter. Kiru turned to Csethiro, who hadn’t seen anything and was fascinated. Kiru closed her eyes again, and Csethiro thought she looked tired; was this draining, for her? Then Kiru opened her eyes and gestured, the way she had a moment ago, and Csethiro gasped as a tingle shot through her.

It departed, and left her feeling-- as though it were midday, on a normal day, and the sun shining and some pleasant task were ahead of her. “Oh!” she said. “Oh that’s-- that’s wonderful! Thank you, Kiru.”

Kiru smiled calmly, but Csethiro suspected she might be light-headed. “Of course,” she murmured, and Maia stood up, and Csethiro gently steered Kiru to the seat he had vacated.

“Now perhaps you should sit and rest,” she said. “Do you need a cup of tea?”

“We require nothing,” Kiru said, regarding her with a slightly surprised fondness. “We came prepared to do that. But we thank you for your consideration. No, think on us no further, and go and get to know one another. We will be here should any need arise, medical or otherwise, but we shan’t respond to anything other than our name.”

Maia laughed, which was a good change from his earlier nervous worry. “Just as thou hast ever done,” he said. “Thou know’st I shan’t hesitate if I need thee.”

Kiru smiled at that, and Maia turned to Csethiro. She clasped her hands nervously, then mastered herself enough to reach out and put her hand into his. “Well, husband?” she said.

He laughed again. It was a nervous laugh, but still it was a laugh, and he was looking at her as though he were really seeing her. “Well,” he said, and they turned toward the bed.

The bed was enormous, all hung in immaculate draperies, and there was a little lamp burning on a shelf on the headboard. Maia extinguished the overhead lamp illuminating the room, and led her over to the bed. “Couldst have three or four wives in this all at once,” she said, deciding to be irreverent. “And a nohecharis sleeping at the foot of the bed.” She unfastened the waist tie of her dressing gown, but hesitated before shedding it.

“Hush, they don’t admit to sleeping, ever,” Maia said, mock-scandalized. “I asked Beshelar and he assured me he doesn’t sleep at all, not even on his days off. They would never sleep on watch.”

“Oh,” Csethiro said, delighted by his playful tone-- the Maia she had first met, these months ago, would never have been able to joke like that. “Oh of course, pardon me.” She mustered her courage and shed her robe, draping it over the bench beside the bed. She held out her hand, and Maia paused with his hands on the tie of his robe, clearly not sure whether to look at her in her nightshirt or not. She broke the tension with a joke. “So a nohecharis sitting wakefully at the foot, then.”

“Fortunately,” Maia said, “they tend to stay outside the curtains, so-- I shan’t have four wives in sequence, and certainly shan’t at once, but if we wanted an orgy, there’d be room.”

He knew that word from one of her letters, and Csethiro blushed in delight. “Dost wish for an orgy?” she asked.

He gave a nervous laugh, and shed his robe at last, handing it to her to put with hers. “I can’t imagine why anyone would,” he said, “I am so nervous of anyone looking at me at all, let alone several people, but there must be something to it.”

Csethiro climbed up into the bed, and pretended to have trouble crawling across it. “I’m nearly there,” she said, pretending to weakness. “I have been climbing for a week but I think I’m nearly in position.”

Maia drew the curtains behind himself, kneeling on the bed like a child. His nightshirt was exquisite, Csethiro noticed, of fine weave and delicately embroidered, and she could nearly see through it-- his skin gleamed in a hint of shadow through the fabric wherever it touched in a single layer, and she could quite see the shape of him everywhere. He was laughing at her antics, and she played it up even further. “Oh no,” she said, “now I am so far-- it will take me at least three days to get back to thee, canst thou wait for me or wilt thou die of thirst?”

“I can meet thee in the middle,” he said, “I am not entirely helpless.” And he rucked his nightshirt up just above his knees so he could knee-walk over closer to the middle. She sat up, and met him there, and then she didn’t know what to do. There was a breathless pause, as they knelt next to one another, and neither of them knew what to do now.

“All my brave words,” she said, “in my letters, so saucy and confident-- did they seem saucy and confident to thee?”

“They did,” he said. “I was impressed.” He had sat down, but she could still see-- in his lap, there was-- he was-- the fabric was so sheer, but she couldn’t make out detail, but she thought-- her heart was pounding, now.

“I wrote so many rough drafts,” she said, “and burned every one of them-- but I told thee, I _told_ thee it was false confidence.”

“I understood,” he said. “Worry not, I completely understand.” He was looking at her, and she knew her nightgown was not a great deal less sheer than his. He would be able to see the shape of her unsupported breasts, which he never would have before, and indeed that seemed to be what he was hesitantly looking at-- and while her instinct told her to turn away, or cover herself, she reminded herself he had every right to look and indeed she wanted him to. She took a deep breath and kept her spine straight, so their motion would be visible, and was rewarded with Maia losing his internal battle not to stare, just for a moment.

“I am, at least, grateful to be clear-headed and not exhausted, for this,” Csethiro said, moving herself a little closer to him. She reached out and touched his shoulder, gathering her courage; she could feel the warmth of his body through that soft fine material. His eyes were so clear, and he looked so nervous he was almost frightened. She thought, then, that it was likely she was going to have to take charge of this encounter, and steeled herself to do so. She knew him well enough now to know that it would be foolish to despise him as weak for being passive-- he didn’t think like most men, so why should she expect him to act like most men? Better to be grateful for what she had, for wishing it otherwise would mean wishing away the best things of him.

“Me too,” he said, with a breathless little laugh. She leaned in, then, and kissed him, letting herself grab him by the jaw as she had wanted to before, so she could take him as she wanted. He made a little noise and melted into her, and it removed the last of her hesitation; she crawled into his lap and pressed herself against him, and was rewarded by him putting his arms around her body.

She kissed him until they were both breathless, and the heat of his body against hers was nearly unbearable. She still hadn’t really seen, but she could feel, against the back of her thigh now, where she’d ended up in his lap-- she was going to need to get a closer look at that, as she suspected the drawings didn’t do it justice.

“Maia,” she said, panting as she came up for air, “Maia, wilt thou let me look at you.”

He twitched, nearly a flinch of his whole body against hers, and she looked into his face in surprise; he looked suddenly miserable. “I, I don’t, I’m,” he said, and he was shrinking down away from her a little, his body language confused-- clearly, much of his body was still very ardently interested in as much contact with her body as possible, but part of him was cringing away.

“Shh,” she said, pulling his face against her shoulder-- oh, her breasts were right there, and that was clearly a distraction, so she moved slightly and put his face in her breasts instead. “Oh Maia. It’s all right. There’s no shame. It’s only our bodies, unadorned. Just like the drawings, only more beautiful.”

He shook, a tremble in his arms as he held her, but he had his cheek pressed against her breast, and she kissed his hair because that was what she could reach. “But I am ugly,” he whispered.

“Who told thee that?” she asked.

He pressed his face even closer to her. “Everyone,” he whispered.

“They lied,” she said, and tugged lightly at one of his braids. “Thour’t a great beauty, such as I never shall be.”

He tilted his head to look up at her a little bit, and it was absurd how beautiful he was, with his great silver-bright eyes in his slate-dark face and his fine sharp features and cheekbones to cut glass with. “I am the Hobgoblin,” he said miserably, “Edrehasivar Half-Tongue, a misbegotten blot of a thing, but we must make do with what we have.”

“Don’t speak so of my husband,” Csethiro said, masking her real anger at whoever had put those words into his mouth under a pretend indignation. “Or I shall have to duel thee, cur, who speaks so-- must I fight thee, for thy uncouth words?”

His eyes had shuttered, a little, at her first exclamation-- she had not masked her real anger well enough, and he had seen it-- but she had curled the last question into an obvious flirty joke, and he looked warily almost-amused. “I am not much of a fighter,” he said.

“Then thou hadst better stop thy mouth,” she said. “I did not bring a dueling-sword to bed but I will not hesitate regardless.”

“What wouldst thou duel with, in bed?” he mused.

“Fear not,” Csethiro said, “I am very resourceful, when it comes to trouble.” She gathered her courage, and took advantage of his loosened grip to pull her nightshirt up by the hem and remove it entirely, discarding it. Now she was completely naked, and he was at eye level with her breasts, which she was rapidly beginning to appreciate as the weapons of distraction that they were. “There,” she said, and boldly gave herself a little shake. “They aren’t anyone’s philosophical ideal of perfection but they are right here, which I expect makes up for many shortcomings.”

Maia had nothing to say to that; he gazed at them in a kind of wonderment, and after a moment she took his hand in hers and put it against her breast, since he wasn’t going to think to do it on his own. “Oh,” he said, as if surprised, but then he brought his other hand up, too, caressing over her back, and she had always read descriptions of heroines overmastered by simple touches but they hadn’t conveyed how good it felt just to be touched, someone’s hand open and gentle and curious. His hand on her breast was tentative as well, but he did press down enough to feel how they yielded, and that also felt far better, far more exciting than any of the times she’d had to squish herself into garments or the like.

He caressed her, and she wriggled herself into his lap again, and found that his hand on her thigh was likewise good, and after a little of this he discovered that he could kiss her in places beside her mouth, and in fact could kiss her breasts, and that was-- “All the lurid novels I’ve read are crap,” Csethiro panted, after a little while, “none of them prepared me for how nice that is.”

“I don’t know how anyone manages to actually-- do the act,” Maia said, a little strangled. “I-- this is almost all I can handle.”

“I think we’ll have to take it in stages,” Csethiro said. She’d sort of drawn herself a little mental map of things to try; one of her manuals had gone into detail that inexperienced young men especially tended to be too overexcitable to manage it all in one go without working up to it, and while some of the accounts had wryly indicated that the male sexual response tended to vanish after satisfaction, others had indicated that young men in particular could be enticed to re-engage after a brief respite. “Why don’t we figure out how you work first, and then we can see if I can-- Maia, I confess, thou toldst me thou wert practicing but I have not done very much of it on my own, I might need additional-- time--”

“I see,” Maia said. “Ah, I don’t know that I can manage very much--”

“Thour’t distracted,” Csethiro said. “Let’s distract thee the rest of the way, shall we?” She could feel it, she was quite certain of what she was feeling-- his member was a very hot ridge along the back of her thigh, and if she settled her weight down and rolled herself against it, he shivered, gasping. It was rewarding, especially if she caught his mouth with hers while he was helpless in the throes of it; he opened to her unresisting then, and trembled in her grip, and it was all very appealing and nothing like the lurid novels made it sound.

“I,” he said, high and thin, and she let go of his mouth so he could breathe better.

“Dost use thy hands?” she asked, whispering low and breathless into his ear. She’d already noticed how sensitive his ears were-- but that was a cliche the books had gotten right, everyone’s ears were more or less sensitive like this, and breath and kisses and whispers were a trope for a reason, she already knew that. “When thou dost thy practicing, for me?”

“Yes,” he breathed.

She pushed him gently down onto his back, and then rolled off him, but only partially. His nightshirt was rucked up over his thighs now, and she ran her hand up one thigh. “Show me, I would use mine on thee.”

He gasped, twitching at her touch, but obeyed, and she followed his hand up his thigh, pushing the nightshirt’s hem out of the way, and there he was-- his member, and she lifted her head to look as she wrapped her hand around it next to his. It was the whole length of her hand, and filled her grip, her fingers barely closing around it-- he made a desperate little whimpering noise, and she exclaimed in surprise at how it felt. It was hot, and firm, not like a limb with bone underneath, but like-- she didn’t know what, the skin was soft as velvet and moved easily, but under the skin it was firmer than muscle, and it twitched with its own independent motion as he gasped and shivered.

“Oh, I,” he managed, “Csethiro--” He still had his own hand there, though he had loosened his grip, and she followed his vague motion with a firmer one of her own, as the manual had described. The skin moved so easily, and she stroked up along the length of it and back down and marveled at how this made him shiver and gasp and arch his spine.

She did not have time to examine it in great detail, to see what the drawings had been meant to represent, how the skin could pull back and reveal the sort of knob at the tip-- she could feel it under her hand, could feel how much smoother still the skin was there, but she had him now, he was clearly on the brink of a climax, and her store of dispassionate curiosity was quite low in relation to how breathlessly excited she was-- he was so alive, his breath and his heartbeat and his whole body moving against her.

“Maia,” she said, “Maia, show me how you--”

He cried out and shuddered, his whole body going stiff, and then-- in her hand, his entire member pulsed, a fascinating and improbably exciting phenomenon, and she exclaimed in wonder at it, and he shook all over and she discovered, to her fascinated delight, that all the vague descriptions using words like “emit” and “issue” had not really done justice to the phenomenon of ejaculatory male orgasm nearly as efficiently as the lurid novel’s description of a “spurt” had, for his, ah, _release_ emitted at rather a velocity, and what did not wind up caught in her hand splattered in several directions, some of it as far as her breasts.

“Oh, Maia,” she said, approvingly; that made some sense, then, to bridge the gap she’d observed in the anatomical drawings, “that’s--”

He shuddered again and let out a sweet little whimper, and she had to kiss him then, all words forgotten. She let go of his member and then didn’t know what to do with her hand, quite, so she held his jaw with her other hand and kissed him, deeply and then sweetly and then lightly, as he caught his breath in little gasps.

“Oh Maia,” she murmured, seeing how affected he was; he was quite overcome, and rolled over against her, pressing his face into her shoulder.

She held him for a long moment, extremely aware of the physical weight of him, the warmth of his body, the feeling of his breathing and heartbeat and the scent of his hair. She was not accustomed to touching other people a great deal, and it was strange to realize now that her body had craved contact like this, just to feel and know another presence.

In a moment he recovered himself somewhat and put his hands on her, shyly, touching her waist and her hip, pulling himself against her and raising his head to kiss her. “Csethiro,” he murmured, sweet and clinging, and shivered a little.

“Are we allowed to get _into_ this bed?” she wondered, feeling along the surface for the edge of a blanket.

He laughed, and lifted his head. “Somewhere in this enormous expanse,” he said, and located the top of a blanket. They rearranged themselves, and she gently caught at the hem of his nightshirt as they slid under the covers. He hesitated, but didn’t stop her, so she pulled it up as he pulled up the blanket, and gently worked it off over his head and then pulled the blankets up after so they were cocooned together in soft linens, and his skin was bare and soft against hers, a thrilling soft slide of warmth.

They lay there together in the dark, breathing together; his skin was so warm, and she was taking a moment to adjust to how strange and good it felt against hers. He was running his hand tentatively up and down her back, with occasional daring forays as far as her waist and hip.

“Maia,” she whispered, after a little while of this, “thou art beautiful.”

He tensed. “I--”

She raised her hand to his mouth, pressing her fingers lightly to his lips. “Hush,” she said. “They lied to thee. Why dost thou think I could not take my eyes off you all of today? Thou art beautiful. But even if thou wert not, still I would love thee.”

He kissed her fingers, and then held her face between his hands and kissed her mouth, and it was the most assertive he’d been so far. She was surprised by the little thrill it sent through her, and in the same moment distantly realized that she was very, very aroused, perhaps more than she’d ever been in her life.

“Touch me,” she said, and her voice shook. “Oh, Maia, touch me--”

He moved his hand down to her breast, and she shivered and rolled onto her back, pulling the blankets back so she could breathe more easily. He smiled down at her, wonderingly, in the suddenly-brighter light. “Hast thou been practicing for me, even a little?” he asked. “Canst show me, how best to touch thee?”

She had no words for this, so she just took his hand in hers and pulled it downward, and pressed his fingers against her clitoris. He bit his lip, his face falling into an expression of concentration, and moved his hand. She shivered, and involuntarily moaned a little.

It took him a moment to orient himself, and then his expression shifted toward a more avid one, tinged with wonder. “It’s-- thou art,” he said, “so-- oh!”

She pushed herself up against him, and he pressed his fingers against her with more confidence. “I think,” she said. “I think thou couldst,” and he pressed down, firmer, circling his finger, making her shiver.

“Art warm enough?” he asked. “Could I sit up and look at-- at thee?”

“I am,” she said. He pushed himself up, pulling the blankets away from her enough that he could see her body, and could see what he was doing.

She caught her breath and blushed in a sudden strange little shock of shame; it felt new and wrong and frightening to be so shamelessly bared, with her legs spread, for a man to look at her.

But it meant she could see him, more; he had the blankets over one shoulder, but she could see the expanse of his chest, his ribs, falling away into shadow, his braids lying across his shoulders-- he leaned over her, and put his hand to her again, eyes darting between his fingers’ work and her face to check her reaction.

He touched her with more sureness now that he could see what he was doing, and she shivered with it, watching his eyes moving over her in avid wonder. She had not dared to practice very much, afraid that somehow she would make herself appear not a virgin-- one of the manuals had gone on at great length about how virginity was not in fact something that could be physically verified, and a woman’s first time was not obligated to be painful or violent or anything of the sort, and it had made her suspect that if she was too much in the habit of satisfying herself, even though it was a false notion that a woman could ever be “proven” untouched, she still would seem too experienced. Not that Maia himself was likely to object, but she had been frightened of it anyway.

She had been unable to resist a little experimentation, but she’d mostly just relied on a vivid imagination and dull pressure of her clothed body against a pillow or some other surface that could give her just enough friction for a little thrill. So she’d never used her fingers on herself the way the manual had described, and she’d absolutely never put anything inside herself. But she certainly could feel, now, how that would be something she’d want.

He was setting her on edge, inflaming her and making her dizzy with wanting. She found herself absently kneading at her own breasts, in her extreme distraction, and her breath was coming fast, and she was-- there was a lot of-- well, she was very slippery, and it wasn’t a sensation she’d really had before.

He bit his lip, and said, “Should I-- that is--” and he was so concerned and so lovely, and she knew what he was asking.

“Yes,” she said, “try it-- in me.”

He tilted his head, and she bent a knee so that he’d have a better view-- it felt thrillingly wanton, shameless of her, displaying herself, opening herself. Carefully, gently, he pushed a finger into her, and then he shifted his weight so both his hands were free; he used the fingers of one hand to keep up the movement to stimulate her clitoris, and then used the other hand’s fingers to carefully, gently slide into her vaginal canal.

At first it was mostly-- distracting, and she felt uncertain about it, it just felt sort of-- like something that had to happen, no more stimulating than something being put into her mouth-- but she’d dutifully and skeptically copied over the descriptions from the manuals that explained that internal pressure could be pleasurable, and so Maia very obviously and methodically experimented with crooking his fingers different ways to try for slightly different angles, and she was prepared to tell him it was all right and he needn’t worry so much because the fingers on her clitoris were quite nice enough, when suddenly between the motion of his two hands he set something off and she shuddered violently and made a noise like she’d been punched.

He froze. “Was that--”

“More,” she managed to say, “do-- again-- that--” and he was already obeying so she couldn’t really manage to say anything else that involved consonants. She shivered again, it was hard to hold still at all and not thrash entirely off the enormous bed, it felt like a shock of power going through her, and she didn’t honestly know if it was pleasure or not, it was so strong, but he kept doing it and she kept shuddering and making involuntary noises.

“Should I--” he said, after a little while of this, during which she thought she might launch him off the bed at any instant.

“Harder,” she said, “do it-- more--”

He nodded, and bit his lip again, and then the pressure increased-- she couldn’t entirely see what he was doing but she rather thought he had more of his fingers in her now, and the angle had changed slightly, and now she _oh_ she was _oh fuck_ it was good, it was a lot, it was, she didn’t know, she had fistfuls of the sheets and her heels planted in the bed and she couldn’t catch her breath and she sobbed with it, writhing, bearing down against the pressure of his hand, and she understood now, she understood how it was supposed to work, how he was supposed to fuck her.

“Oh,” she said, “oh _fuck_ ,” and she’d been saying some of those things out loud, she realized belatedly.

He was watching her, wide eyed and a little dazed, almost, and she wanted to tell him fondly how well he was doing, but she just didn’t have any focus left to spare; her whole world was taking place between her spine and her belly button and out through every nerve. It was-- a lot to feel, all at once, and she didn’t know what to do or how to focus it.

“Csethiro,” he said, low and intent, breathless, and he leaned in closer to her, “what about page five, figure four?”

She gasped at the thought of it, remembered drawing the diagram-- “Yes,” she said, and he didn’t even wait for her to finish the word, but bent down eagerly, without hesitation, and fastened his mouth upon her like he was kissing her. He kept up the motion of the fingers working internally, and augmented, then replaced, the exterior ones’ work with his tongue, and lips, and she didn’t know what he was doing but it was warm and slick, and pressing firmly, and his newly-freed hand ran up along her body to knead at her breast.

“Maia,” she said, shuddering, and he drove his fingers into her and she cried out sharply as suddenly all the vast landscape of sensation came to an abrupt focus, traveling swiftly in a sharp lightning-strike of sensation up her spine and tingling out through her limbs, and she sobbed, convulsing in every muscle, fists in the sheets and toes curling and every muscle in her cunt clenching down tightly around his fingers. It lasted for a long moment and then finally receded in a tingling wave, and left her gasping for breath and Maia staring down at her as if stunned.

“Art thou well?” he asked as she tried to catch her breath. “Should I stop?”

She managed to nod, and he gently pulled his fingers out of her and gathered her in his arms. “Maia,” she whispered, putting her arms around him, and he came to her, pulling up the blankets, and held her in what she could recognize was a perfect echo of the way she’d just been holding him when he’d seemed so fragile and shattered, and she could recognize that she felt that same way, now, down to the way she blindly nuzzled at his shoulder like he had at hers.

“Was it like that in the lurid book?” he asked, his tone just a little teasing.

“I quite understand the heroine’s terrible life choices now,” Csethiro managed breathlessly. He was running his hand up and down her back again, and it was even more pleasant now because he wasn’t being quite so shy about it. He’d quite seen her entirety, now, and a remembered tingle went through her just to contemplate that. She shivered.

“That seemed rather violent for thee,” Maia reflected. “Almost as if it weren’t entirely pleasant.”

“No, it was, just confusing,” she said. “Now I think I’d be less alarmed, for having done it before.”

He laughed, and kissed her temple. “Thy studying did not warn thee adequately?”

“One can’t be warned about such a thing,” she said. “One has to experience it.” She lifted her head, and sought his mouth. He kissed her, and she reflected idly that perhaps she should have wiped his face better, but there was something thrillingly dirty in realizing why he tasted thus. She was glad she’d been so bold as to mention that one, which had genuinely interested her, instead of picking a different one for effect in her letter. Once they’d mastered the basics perhaps they could make a study of all the different acts on that page.

He wasn’t kissing her like a tired man, and she had a suspicion that her tactic of re-arousing him had worked. She herself had briefly thought she might be done for the evening, but as she moved her hip against him and felt that his member was prodding her attentively, she decided that she would quite like to make another foray into sexual experience. And she knew, there’d be pointed questions tomorrow, which she’d quite like to be able to give casual answers to without needing to make anything up.

So she broke off kissing him, and caught her breath a moment, looking up into his face. “I think thou shouldst fuck me, now,” she said.

“Thou meanst,” he said, and she licked her teeth and nodded.

“I am ready for thee,” she said. “I think thou’rt ready for me.”

“I,” he said, “I think-- should we?”

“Yes,” she said, and rolled onto her back, pulling her braids out from under her shoulders. He ran his hand along her body, lingering at her breast, and then caressing down her belly and hip to her thigh. She reached out and found his hip, then moved her hand across until she found his member. He was, indeed, completely erect, as far as she could tell, and when she stroked it he made a little noise.

“How should,” he said, uncertain and hesitating.

“We could just go through in order,” she said. “The first illustration depicted the act thus, did it not?”

“It did,” he conceded. She helped sort out the blankets so he could stay within their shelter as he rolled over above her, holding himself up on his arms and looking down with a mixture of trepidation and-- oh, desire, certainly, which it offset a lot of her nervousness to see. “Can I just--”

She bent her legs, corralling him between her knees playfully, but grew more serious as she reached down to try to get him aligned with her. She was nervous about this; everything else had been so drastically under-described that she had no faith in anything she’d read about this either having really prepared her. But she was certain they had to do this now. It would be dawn soon, and there was a fair amount of political drama potentially riding on this.

“Here,” she said, “like that,” and he bit his lip and made an attempt and the angle was wrong. After a little more careful maneuvering-- he was almost too careful, she had to pull on him to make him push-- suddenly he was sinking into her, and she very carefully made no sound because she knew it would alarm him into stopping. Instead, once she could speak, she said, “Yes, good,” even though it didn’t feel good, but it didn’t feel bad either, and he pushed in for far longer than she’d expected it would take, and then his breath was hot against her neck and he was holding himself carefully, tremblingly still, and their bodies were entirely joined and for the first time so far in this process Csethiro felt unpleasantly like a breeding animal, pinned and held in place for use.

“Csethiro,” Maia said, soft and uncertain in her ear, and he turned his head blindly, searching, and found her mouth. She accepted the penetration of his tongue as resignedly as she was accepting the penetration of his member, open and unresisting: this was her purpose, her duty, her function.

But Maia took her face between his hands gently, and rolled his body against hers, a gentle inexorable coaxing. Despite herself she gasped and twitched as his movement rolled across whatever his fingers had found in her, earlier, that place that sent sparks skittering along her nerves, and she felt his mouth curve against hers in wonder and delight. “Ah-- Csethiro, thou’rt so perfect,” he said, fervent, and moved his body with hers, and she found that if she rolled her hips she could work his length within her in such a way that the sparks came more readily.

“Put thy hand there,” he said, reaching for her arm, “thou hast the angle--”

She slid her hand between their bodies and found she could press her fingers down on her clitoris and then the sparks compounded themselves, running tingling along her spine until she had to tip her head back to breathe. “Oh,” she said, “Maia--”

There were no words for a few moments, only their breathing, together, and intensifying movement; Csethiro lost all sense of where her body was and panted in dazed vertigo as her whole world swooped away and left only the sensation of pressure, her fingers and his member, sending jolts of wild unfocused sensation all through her, and she finally caught her breath and held it, focusing until that lightning-strike of pleasure jolted up her spine again, familiar now but still terrifying in its intensity, and she grabbed onto his hips with both hands and fastened her legs around him and held on, shuddering-- shuddering-- “Maia,” she sobbed, “fuck, fuck me-- oh--” and she was breathing too hard to speak, her voice lost to hoarseness.

He managed to stutter her name, and then his movements went ragged and he shook and shook in her arms, gasping-- she felt like an animal again as he rutted in her but it was no longer unpleasant duty so much as it was sort of thrillingly filthy. She felt used, dirty, as fucked as any whore, filled like a bred sow, but the pleasure was still zinging wildly through her and she bit his shoulder convulsively as he shuddered to a spent conclusion.

The interlude that followed wasn’t truly one of stillness-- both of them were heaving for breath and their pulses were still pounding wildly-- but he lay heavy atop her and within her, and she kept her arms and legs locked around him, licking soft and contrite over the place where she’d bitten him too hard, his head heavy on her other shoulder.

He eventually moved his head, rubbing his face sweetly against her neck. “That felt-- holy,” he whispered, proving that while there was less than zero distance between them physically, as he was still in this moment actively occupying part of the interior of her body, he’d had an entirely different experience than she had. He lifted his head a little and looked at her wonderingly, finding one hand and using it to smooth the hair back from her face. “Didst thou feel-- like a sacred thing?”

She kissed him, instead of answering with the truth-- she surmised he would not be as thrilled by comparisons to prostitutes or bred animals as she had been-- and smiled softly at him. “Thou’rt beautiful,” she murmured, because it was true-- he was never so beautiful as when wonder stirred him, though the privilege of witnessing him in the throes of desire was undeniable. And then, because it was the truth, she added, “I love thee, Maia.”

His expression went sort of wobbly and he pressed his face into her neck. “Csethiro Ceredin,” he said.

“Csethiro Drazharan,” she corrected him. It felt lovely to shed her father’s name.

He raised his head, at that, and beamed at her like the sun coming up-- no, like it was a secret, that he was delighted to share with her. “Csethiro Zhasan,” he said.


	10. Awakening/Asleepening

Bunu was not particularly ashamed of having had his ear pressed against the bedchamber door for a goodly while there. There’d been voices and stirring and unmistakable exclamations for an impressively prolonged time, but nobody had sounded upset at all. 

There had been quiet for a little while, so he moved away slightly, taking up his position in the chair next to the door. Sure enough, he eventually heard footsteps, and was prepared for Kiru to come out and want to switch places with him so she could eat. 

So when the door opened, he was already standing. But Kiru didn’t come out alone; the new Empress came out with her, wrapped in a dressing gown and looking charmingly flushed and sleepy, her hair braided for sleep but somewhat tellingly mussed-up. 

“Call of nature,” Kiru said cheerfully, sotto voce. “I’ll accompany her, if thou’lt take over?”

“Of course,” Bunu answered, bowing a little to the Empress. He went in, and on his way over to the window casement, paused to peer in the open section of the bedcurtains, to see that the Emperor was all right. The lamp was out, but Bunu’s night vision was good, and he could make out Edrehasivar’s dark hair against the pillow. 

“Telimezh?” Himself said, soft and hoarse. 

“Aye, Serenity,” Bunu said. “Is there aught you need?”

“No, thank you.” Edrehasivar sat up, and shivered a little. “It’s nearly dawn, isn’t it?”

Telimezh gave the window a calculating look. Between the curtains, it was lightening, somewhat. “Aye,” he said again. “Try to get a bit of sleep, won’t you?”

“I was almost asleep,” Edrehasivar said with a laugh, “but then Csethiro had to get up, and now I’m remembering all the things I had to worry about.”

“Don’t,” Bunu said. “Oh, Serenity, don’t. The worst is behind us. The enemies who didn’t want to see you wed are too late for that, now, and their less committed supporters will all fall away, leaving them easier to counter.”

“We hope that’s true,” Himself said. 

“Doubtless there are other problems to worry about,” Bunu said, “but all are manageable, and you have a wife now, to be your ally, do you not? I assume all went well with that process, or Kiru’d not have looked so cheerful.”

Edrehasivar laughed softly, shy. “It did,” he said. “It wasn’t nearly so-- involved as I feared.”

“Good,” Bunu said. “Then you needn’t worry about that anymore.”

“But now I have to worry about potential children,” Himself said, “and all the attendant dangers.”

“Let that wait,” Bunu said, with a gentle laugh. “Let that wait a little, surely. You’ll have plenty of time to worry about it, you don’t need a head start.”

“I suppose I don’t,” Himself said, and his laugh was rueful. It wasn’t long, Bunu thought, since Himself had been considered a child. It was a lot for him to be considering children of his own, but it was expected. And certainly, Dach’os-- well, the Zhasan, now-- was no child, herself. 

“Go to sleep, Serenity,” Bunu said, moving away from the bed and back toward the door. Surely the Zhasan should be returning any moment, she hadn’t been dressed for an excursion. Since Himself was awake, Bunu had no compunction about opening the door into the antechamber and listening, for a moment, just to make sure all was well-- normally, with a nohecharis either side of the door, it wasn’t necessary, but he always felt a little uncomfortable shut in here if the antechamber wasn’t guarded. 

He listened to the silence for a moment-- there was often someone stirring in the kitchen, as the servants’ shifts started before dawn. This morning was likely to be different, since everyone had been awake so late, but there would be at least a scullery maid to make sure the fire was kindled, and not everyone would be sleeping in today. 

In another moment or two, he heard Kiru speaking quietly, and the Zhasan laughed-- her voice was so wonderfully low and rich, Bunu thought he could probably listen to her all day. It wasn’t that he didn’t like listening to Edrehasivar’s voice, it just was unexceptional; Csethiro’s was really striking, and pleasant, and he sternly corrected himself for even thinking of her by her given name, that wasn’t for him.

He stood aside to let her in the room, and looked at Kiru, who looked tiredly back at him. She considered it, and he jerked his chin down to indicate himself, raising his eyebrows and tipping his head back into the room.

“If you don’t mind,” she said quietly.

“We don’t,” he said, and reached over to press her shoulder. “Relax a bit,” he said, and went back into the bedchamber, closing the door. 

Cs--the Zhasan climbed back into the bed and drew the curtains, and in a moment shed her dressing gown. Bunu picked it up and folded it neatly onto the seat by the bed, and went and sat in the window casement.

There was rustling and some soft murmuring within the bed, but soon enough they settled down. It was strange, Bunu reflected, to have two people in there, he’d grown so used to the Emperor alone and his soft sleeping noises, the way he sometimes rubbed his feet together and twitched as he fell asleep. These were entirely different noises, and two sets of lungs breathing softly. 

He listened, and could tell in a little while that Edrehasivar had fallen asleep. Csethiro’s breathing was too quiet to make out, but in a little while longer, she too was breathing audibly in that harsh shallow way of the sleeper. Himself’s breathing was so familiar now that Bunu could tell it apart from hers. He wondered if her breathing would grow equally familiar, or if she would sleep apart often enough that it wouldn’t.

He lost himself in reverie, watching the dawn crawl up the sky from the crack between the drapes. It was full morning in a little while, and he could hear the household waking up. It was all at a distance, but he was so attuned to it now, he could tell. 

The Zhasan awakened first; she had been breathing heavier and more loudly, and suddenly made a snorting sound and went silent. He heard her, in a moment, rustling as she rolled over; she’d snorted herself awake, which was sort of charming really. 

She yawned, and stretched; Bunu found himself hoping she’d fall back asleep, since it had only been a couple of hours at the most. Normally, Edrehasivar would be awake already, but surely he’d sleep in today. 

But Edrehasivar woke too, in short order. They murmured quietly to one another, and Bunu prepared to stand up and greet them. But they didn’t open the bedcurtains. The Zhasan giggled, and the Emperor made a soft, fervent noise. 

Oh no. Bunu closed his eyes, as if that would make this not happen.

“Oh,  _ my _ ,” the Zhasan said, admiringly. 

The Emperor huffed out a quiet laugh, and murmured, embarrassed, “I always wake up like that, though.”

“What dost thou normally do, without a wife to help thee?” she asked, coy.

Edrehasivar laughed. “I ignore it and hope it goes away,” he said, “and honestly it normally does because I would be so mortified for my edocharei to--” And then he gasped, and made a desperate little sound that made it quite obvious that was not what was going to happen this time.

“We can obviously do better than that,” the Zhasan said. 

“Art thou not too sore?” Edrehasivar asked, and Bunu agreed; surely, after all that noise last night--

“I am not,” the Zhasan said, almost sounding offended. “A little gentle lovemaking? Maia, I only need a little warming up.”

“Well,” the Emperor said. “I would hate to deny thee.” The bedclothes rustled. “Should I--”

“Oh, just thy hand,” the Zhasan said, and Bunu thought to plug his ears with his hands. It only lasted him for a few moments, though, before he realized it was almost worse; he could still mostly hear the various muffled choreography going on inside the bedcurtains, and now he was thinking far too hard about it. 

He removed his hands from his ears as the Zhasan was in the midst of letting out a wonderfully throaty shivering cry, which he had been able to hear with his ears blocked and really wasn’t sure if that was worse. 

“Oh, gods,” Himself said faintly. “Oh-- Csethiro--”

“We can-- check this-- one off-- the list as a-- definite yes,” she said. The bed was too well-made to creak, but it was definitely bouncing. 

“The view alone,” Himself said, sounding breathless. She laughed, a bit shakily. 

“Oh, it’s,” she said. “The-- yes, the angle, this is-- it’s a good one.”

Bunu covered his eyes, not that there was anything to see, but he absolutely knew without the slightest shadow of a doubt what was going on in there, and he could envision it in far too much detail, and the parts of his mind that took too prurient an interest in such things were fastened, rapt, upon Csethiro’s throaty laugh and gasping breaths and the audible bouncing of the bed, and thinking of how her breasts would shake as she rode-- 

Bunu bit his knuckle to distract himself; he must not think of her by the name her husband was repeating now, as if in prayer-- oh no, now he would think of it when Himself prayed, when he did so aloud-- this was a disaster. 

Herself let out another guttural, gasping moan, through her teeth, rising toward the end and choking it off suddenly, and the Emperor made a softer stuttering exclamation, and after another moment the movement of the bed tapered off and was replaced by relative stillness punctuated by ragged breathing. 

Bunu pried his teeth out of his hand and did some deep breathing of his own, trying to get himself firmly under control. This was terrible. This was-- well, at least it wasn’t ideal. This was going to take some getting used to.

By the time the bed curtain twitched aside to reveal a somewhat self-conscious Edrehasivar, Bunu was at least able to sit normally, and was doing what he hoped was a credible impression of impassivity, though he could tell his ears were still quite pink. He studiously gazed off into middle distance as if he hadn’t noticed the bedcurtains opening, as Himself got to his feet.

“Good morning, Serenity,” Bunu said quietly, neutrally. 

“Good morning, Telimezh,” Himself said. “What’s the clock?”

Telimezh had been keeping an eye on the timepiece near the door. “It’s getting on toward nine,” he said. “You didn’t get much sleep.”

Himself blushed deeply, which was always a charming spectacle and at the moment was intensified by his already having been somewhat flushed from his recent exertions. “Well,” he said, “no, it was a late night.”

The Zhasan crawled to the edge of the bed, and sat with her nightdress rucked up above her knees, re-fastening the neck opening ties of it modestly; she’d clearly just pulled it back over her head. Her legs were long and white and smoothly-curved with muscle, and Bunu kept his eyes fixed upon Edrehasivar instead of noting that they were exposed well up into her thigh area. She looked on the floor for the dressing-gown she’d dropped, and Edrehasivar retrieved it from where Bunu had moved it, handing it to her. 

“Oh, thank you,” she said, and then she noticed Telimezh, and paused, frowning slightly. “You are not the person you were when we went to bed.” She was using the plural, not the formal-first, but Bunu still felt rebuked.

“No,” he said, “we frequently trade places in the night-- we wanted Kiru to have a chance to eat, she has been under considerable strain--”

“Oh,” Himself said, turning to the Zhasan in concern, “yes, they frequently trade places. I-- I should have told thee, but while I sleep is often the only time they get to eat, during their shifts. I hadn’t thought--” and he blushed.

Bunu could not help blushing as well. The Zhasan saved them both, and said, “Don’t-- of course, Serenity, your nohecharei must comport themselves as they will, we intended no censure. We shall accustom ourselves to their presence, in time, we were merely startled, is all.”

Bunu was uncomfortably aware that she’d been using the informal-first and the informal-second with Kiru all along, and he had sort of forgotten that she treated him like a stranger. It was only what he merited-- and he’d merit worse, if she knew how he had been thinking of her! He had to get himself under control.

It was something he earnestly didn’t want to discuss with Kiru, and yet he was probably going to have to seek her advice. 

  
  
  
  


Deret and Cala wound up sitting at the kitchen table, both too exhausted to get up, after the shift change. The kitchen staff had a barrel of wine open, and everyone was drinking festively; Echelo set a cup apiece down in front of the two nohecharei, and they drank some but mostly they just sat slumped, shoulders pressed against one another, buzzing with exhaustion.

After a bit Deret realized Cala had fallen asleep there. He should get them up, should get Cala home and into bed. Dawn wasn’t far off, and they’d have to come back on duty the next day in far too few hours, because Telimezh and Kiru were on a short shift since they wouldn’t have slept at all the previous day. 

He nudged Cala with his shoulder, and in response Cala slumped down lower, his head falling onto Deret’s shoulder. 

“Oh come on,” Deret said.

Cala snored, readjusted position, and did not wake.

Deret was going to have to shake him awake and pull him up. First he had to get himself up. He was going to do it. In a moment. He drank a little more of his wine, first. 

Csevet came into the kitchen, and Echelo handed him a cup of wine too. He accepted it, they toasted one another, and then Csevet turned and saw Deret and Cala at the table. 

“Oh dear,” he said, and came over and sat down. 

Deret shook his head slightly. “I can’t do it,” he said. “I can’t get him to bed.”

“Let me help,” Csevet said.

“Thy arm,” Deret said, in dismay.

“Worry not,” Csevet said. He downed his entire cup of wine, set it aside, and came over. “Cala, love,” he said, “thou must go to bed,” in a charmingly rustic accent, and took the maza by the arm. “Keep him from startling awake and killing me, if thou pleasest, Beshelar.”

Cala groaned, and Deret gently took his other arm, pushing him very carefully upright. “Come on now,” he said, “let’s get you to bed.”

“W’zzwake,” Cala said confusedly, sitting up unsteadily. His eyes weren’t quite pointing the same direction, and his glasses were wildly askew. He fixed them, reflexively, and blinked in muzzy confusion at Deret. “Wh’rr.”

“We’re in the kitchen,” Deret said. “We just sat down for a moment. Let’s get you to bed, then.”

“Oh,” Cala said, and recognized Csevet. “Aisava. Yes. I didn’t-- I wasn’t asleep, I just--”

Deret decided Csevet had the right idea, and downed the rest of his cup of wine, then stood up and helped Cala up. Csevet held Cala’s arm, and Deret took Cala’s other arm over his shoulders, and they processed down the hall to the nohecharei quarters.

Cala was heavy and unsteady, and paused at one point. “C’d cast a wakefulness maz,” he said, with an air of realization.

“Don’t,” Beshelar said. “Cala! Don’t. Just go to sleep. Thou just needest sleep. Our shift starts soon enough, thou’lt need thy strength then.”

“Oh,” Cala said, and let them prod him back into forward motion. 

Csevet got the door, and paused; Deret steered them toward Cala’s room, and turned back the blankets, then unfastened Cala’s robe for him as Csevet pulled the baldric awkwardly off over his head. Cala sat down on the edge of the bed, waving uncoordinatedly at his shoes. Csevet managed to remove them, and Deret unfastened Cala’s trousers but left them on. “He’ll be fine thus,” Deret said, too embarrassed to take Cala’s trousers off him in front of Csevet. Anyway, he would be fine. Deret pulled the blankets up over his body, and Csevet carefully removed Cala’s spectacles and put them on the bedside table.

“Sleep well, Athmaza,” Csevet said, unmistakably fond.

“Thou must be exhausted as well,” Deret pointed out. He pulled his own baldric off over his head, and set to work on the buttons of his jerkin.

“Oh,” Csevet said, “I am. But I haven’t had to cast maz after maz on every morsel of food for days. I can’t imagine how that drains you.”

“A lot,” Deret said. “But we hadn’t finished vetting the substitutes and none of us was comfortable letting them--”

“I know,” Csevet said. “Believe me, I know.” They left Cala’s bedroom, which despite being exactly the same layout as Deret’s was somehow infinitely more cluttered and less barracks-like, and went back out into the main room. Deret was so tired everything had a bright edge to it, like he was seeing the souls of objects; he hung his baldric over the back of a chair, and shed his jerkin and added it to the pile. Normally, he’d never do that, but he was so tired.

He went and sat on the divan in the main room to take his boots off. Csevet sat next to him, and said, “Must I put thee to bed as well?”

There was nothing untoward in it, Deret told himself sternly, but he blushed helplessly anyway, to his mortification. “I,” he said, trying to sound resolved, “I am fine,” but it was unconvincing.

Csevet tilted his head a little. “Why dost thou blush so?” he asked. “Art thinking of me, in thy bed?”

He’d nailed it in a single shot, which was disconcerting and unfortunate. Deret felt his ears go even hotter. That entire cup of wine had gone straight to his head, and now he didn’t know how to answer. “I don’t mean to,” he said. 

“Dost not want to?” Csevet asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Deret said. 

Csevet was looking him over, and he couldn’t put together what the man possibly meant. In a moment, Csevet said, “Cala told me thou’lt not even consider an affair with anyone who isn’t your exact social equal.”

Deret took a breath, mustering his composure, and said, “Sex and power should not mix.”

“Hm,” Csevet said. Deret finally darted a look at him, and he was watching Deret with an amused sort of interest. “I asked Cala if he were your equal and he confessed he was afraid to ask.”

Deret frowned. He hadn’t thought Cala was much interested; the man had made a desultory pass at him once, but there hadn’t been much behind it, so Deret had turned it down flippantly just to spare them both awkwardness. “Well,” he said, “I suppose he is, but I don’t think-- a casual dalliance with so close a coworker struck me as a terrible idea.”

Csevet raised both eyebrows at that. “I should have known thou’rt not the casual sort,” he said, sounding amused. 

“I don’t know what sort I am,” Deret blurted miserably, feeling as though Csevet must be mocking him, and it was more than he could bear, in his exhausted state. “And I’ll not likely find out.”

“Why ever not?” Csevet asked mildly. 

“Because,” Deret said patiently, “I’m an asshole and nobody likes me, so the only people who want to know what sort I am are people who want to know so they can mock me, and I can’t blame them, but that means not that I must  _ like _ it.” He pushed to his feet, and had to pause to lean against the wall when his legs wouldn’t obey him. It was all too much; he was so tired, his dear sweet emperor was even now in the arms of a lovely woman who Deret was going to have to spend the next decade or two or three listening to him fuck, and now his awkwardness with Csevet was apparently deepening into active enmity just when he’d hoped they’d be able to reconcile. Else why would Csevet tease him so? He leaned against the wall a moment, trying to collect himself. It felt like the entire inside of his chest was hollow. 

Csevet was standing quite close to him, now. “Hush,” the secretary said, a little awkwardly, and it was that awkward sincerity that made Deret pay attention. “I meant not-- I’m not mocking thee, Deret.”

“Then why dost thou care?” Deret asked plaintively, holding himself up as his knees shook. Csevet stepped in closer and put his arm around Deret’s waist, to help him away from the wall. 

There was a pause, as Deret realized Csevet was trying to help him to bed, but didn’t know which bedroom was his, so Deret had to point it out, and they shuffled over toward it together, Deret in his stocking feet now no taller than Csevet. 

Csevet stumbled as he let go of Deret, and Deret caught him; between the two of them they just managed enough control over their limbs to wind up sitting on Deret’s bed. “Oof,” Csevet said, and Deret grimaced, hands hovering over the sling.

“Art thou all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Csevet said, “it’s-- it only hurts if I move unwisely, which I just did. In a moment I’ll be fine.” He was sitting uncomfortably hunched, but in a moment tentatively straightened his back, facial expression under control but ears dipping in pain and weariness. 

“I  _ am _ sorry,” Deret said, “whenever I look at that sling I think again how sorry I am to have injured you.” He grimaced. “Perhaps that’s the worst part of being an asshole, that I don’t mean to.”

“Thou’rt an asshole, but not on purpose,” Csevet said, and maybe Deret was imagining it, but he sounded as fond then as he had of Cala earlier. 

“If only I could bring myself to just intend it,” Deret said. “An I could commit to the asshole aesthetic, I could rue it less.”

Csevet reached over and took Deret’s hand, very carefully and deliberately. “I appreciate the distinction,” he said. His hand was warm, and solid, and Deret stared at it, dull with exhaustion, trying to think of innocuous reasons why a man would sit on one’s bed and hold one’s hand. He came up without any, and looked up at Csevet in puzzlement. There had to be something here he was misunderstanding.

“I don’t think thou’rt genuinely an asshole,” Csevet said, with the air of someone spelling out the obvious. “I understand thou dost not mean harm, most of the time. I understand that thou’rt genuinely trying your best, in all things, and that thy intentions are only the best. I am sorry that I did not appreciate this earlier; I could have saved myself a month or two in a sling.”

“Dost thou-- not dislike me, then?” Deret asked, letting himself feel hopeful.

“I do not dislike you,” Csevet confirmed. “So ‘tisn’t true that thou’rt an asshole and nobody likes thee.  _ I _ like thee, at the least.”

Deret could have cried, delicate as he was in his exhaustion. “Then,” he said, “thou forgiv’st me, for injuring thee?”

“It was my fault in the first place,” Csevet said. “A lesser man could have done far worse to me.”

Deret impulsively pulled Csevet’s hand toward him and kissed it. “ _ Thank _ ’ee,” he said, with more intensity than he had intended. “I’ve not been able to stop fretting about that.” Belatedly, he realized that kissing was perhaps a bit much, and he let go of Csevet’s hand, blushing deeply. “I want very badly to be on good terms with thee and I-- well.” He gave up, too self-conscious to continue.

“Then let me also apologize again for accusing thee of wanting to blackmail me,” Csevet said. “Of course it was the sort of thing thou wouldst never countenance, and were I in a better frame of mind at the time I would have known that, but thou might’st understand, I was not myself.”

“Of course,” Deret said. It was such a relief, to think that Csevet wasn’t an enemy, and it took such a weight off him, that his weariness came down in its stead, and he found himself prying his eyes back open: the conversation wasn’t over, and he didn’t want to offend Csevet. “I imagine thou’st been under,” and he had to pause to yawn, “pardon me, as much strain as…” He forgot what he was trying to say. “Uh, that is.”

Csevet laughed. “I will let thee go to sleep,” he said. “I meant not to keep thee up so late.” He stood up. Deret stood, too, so that he could unfasten his trousers; normally, he’d wait, but he was so tired. Csevet looked down, and then back up to his face. “Just-- if thou’rt not too tired, couldst thou tell me whether I’m enough your social equal for your standards?”

Deret blinked up at him. It would be ridiculous of him to expect that he outranked Csevet, and yet… Csevet certainly didn’t outrank him. In truth he hadn’t considered it deeply, though he had begun to let himself, tentatively, imagine what it would be like to-- oh.  _ Oh _ . Was Csevet actually-- 

He thought of asking, thought of making something of it, and then decided he was near delirium with exhaustion and now was not the time for such a conversation. So he simply said, “Yes,” and left it at that.

“Yes, thou’lt tell me, or yes, I am?”

“Yes, thou art,” Deret said. 

Csevet smiled, a soft and somewhat mysterious smile. “Good,” he said. “Then I shall leave it at that, for the moment, but mayhap we could discuss it sometime soon?”

“I,” Deret said, staring at Csevet in dumbfounded awkwardness, holding his trousers up with his hands, “I, uh-- I’d-- I’d like that.”

Csevet leaned in and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Goodnight, Deret,” he said, and turned and left, closing the door firmly behind himself. 

Deret pressed his hand to the spot on his cheek that Csevet’s lips had so lightly touched, and sat down hard on the edge of the bed. “Goodnight,” he said belatedly, and then with the very last of his strength, kicked his trousers off and lay down still in his shirt and was dead to the world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what, I decided to mark this complete at 10 chapters and the rest of the loose ends will get wound up in a separate story I'm going to start posting, and I'll probably do my usual trick of trailing off and never saying it's entirely "done" because I'll always have more ideas, but the bulk of the loose ends will get tied neatly off, and if I have time, I'll spend a while exploring the fantastic lesbian subculture that's absolutely going to spring up under Maia's generosity and tolerance, Csethiro's patronage, and Archduchess Vedero's leadership. But if I don't have time, at least some of the ideas will be posted. In the meantime, this story can just be its major and minor arcs and resolutions.  
> Thanks to everyone for reading, and an unsubtle hint that the more engagement there is with the next story of course the more of it will wind up getting posted, but-- life interferes, and I can't sustain a chapter a day posting rate anymore, so let me bind this one off while it's still fresh. :)


End file.
